


All Time Low

by moony143



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Age Difference, Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Sex Pollen Made Them Do It, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, I Borrowed a Lot From Star Trek, It's my AU so, Loose Interpretation of Centaurian Culture, M/M, Mating, Not Compliant With Vol2, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter is a Little Shit, Pining, Post-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Rough Sex, Sex Pollen, Switching, Violence, Weirdly Convenient OMCs, everyone is out of character, lots of smut, oh well, quilldu
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2018-12-03 07:50:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 51,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11527824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moony143/pseuds/moony143
Summary: Peter may have left the Ravagers, may be lying in wait for Yondu to track him down and beat the shit out of him for tricking him out of the Infinity Stone, but when Kraglin - the man who raised him at Yondu's insistence and the Galaxy's worst surrogate older brother - calls him and tells him he might be the only person who can help Yondu out of his latest fucked up situation he can't find it in himself to say no.The Ravagers had come across a special type of glowing flower from Yondu's home planet while on a retrieval at the ruins of the Collector's place. Turns out that flower was a mating flower and when Yondu inhaled the pollen it awoke his ancient mating drive. Now if he doesn't find a worthy partner to mate with he'll die, apparently, and Peter is more than willing to rise to the occasion, never one to shy away from his sexual appetites. The problem is that Peter has never bothered to read the fine print, and now he's found himself inexplicably tied to his cranky, hot tempered captain. In order to break their connection they need to travel to Yondu's home planet, but unfortunately nothing in Peter's life is ever as easy as it should be.





	1. I'll Be There

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if any of you are in to Star Trek, but my favorite character, Spock, is a an alien called a Vulcan. His species goes through something called Pon Farr every seven years, where they are basically forced to mate or die (this is not made up for fanfiction, it's totally fucking canon). This is one of my favorite tropes ever, where Spock and Kirk accidentally bond because Kirk is the only person on the ship who can satisfy Spock's mating need and they set out to break the bond.  
> ANYWAY, Spock's species is telepathic (which is why the accidental bonding happens in the throes of passion) and I found out the Centaurians can be kind of telepathic/empathic and I thought, hey, I can steal this from another fandom and roll with it!  
> Don't worry guys I have another chapter of Weight of the World coming soon. I just couldn't get this out of my head.

Peter jerked awake at the sharp banging on his door, limbs flailing so violently that he narrowly avoided hitting his bed partner (Jason? Peyton? What was this guy’s name again?). He let out a shaky breath when he realized they weren’t being attacked or some crazy shit, panic making way for irritation in an instant.

“ _What?_ I’m tryin’ to fucking sleep here, man!” he bellowed, shrugging off the hand he felt trying to soothe him by rubbing circles on his back.

“You’ve got a call, Star Princess,” Rocket called through the door, banging on it once more and Peter wondered how someone with such tiny hands could make such a loud racket. “It’s that skinny little weirdo from Yondu’s crew.”

Peter’s heart lurched, because he hadn’t heard from anyone in Yondu’s clan (including the man himself) since the incident on Xandar, and the only reasons he could think of that Kraglin would be trying to call him now were firmly lodged in the ‘not good’ category. He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his scruffy cheek and reminding himself that he wasn’t supposed to _care_ about anyone on the _Eclector_ anymore; Kraglin may have basically raised him – both of them kicking and screaming the whole damn way, but dealing with it because it was the Captain’s order and disobeying was just not an option – and Yondu may have become something close to a mentor as he’d gotten older, but Peter knew he’d burned those bridges with that Orb shit. Better to not give a shit and avoid being emotionally compromised when they eventually came a knockin’.

“Alright, alright,” he called, glancing down at the man next to him, running one hand up a meaty orange thigh in a promise to have another go when he was done. The man shifted, rolling over so the sheet slid off his body. Peter leered at his half-hard length, sucking his own lip between his teeth. “Tell him I’ll be on the line in just a second.”

“Do I _look_ like your goddamn butler? Just pick up the damn comm, Quill,” Rocket snapped, and Peter heard the nails on his little feet clicking the ground as he walked away.

“He is a very angry rodent, yes?” the man asked, leaning up to place a soft kiss on Peter’s shoulder.

Peter bristled, pulling his hand back. “Don’t call him ‘rodent’,” he snapped, sliding out of his furs and searching around for a pair of pants to slip on. What he found was a wrinkled pair of sweatpants, but it passed the sniff test and they would only be on for a few minutes anyway so he pulled them over his bare hips and made his way over to the desk. “His name is Rocket.”

The man huffed and fell back into the bed, scratching at his somewhat scaly chest before rolling over to presumably go back to sleep. Peter shrugged and flicked on his holoscreen. Sure enough, there was Kraglin’s ugly mug, his caller ID picture blinking on Peter’s hovering screen. He let out a breath – not shaky at _all_ , alright? – and answered the call.

“Holy - !” he yelped when Kraglin’s video patched through. “What the actual fuck happened to your face?”

Kraglin frowned – at least Peter _thought_ he was frowning. It was damn hard to tell what was going on under all the scabs and bruises – poking gingerly at his left eye which was so swollen Peter was pretty sure he wasn’t able to see out of it. When he spoke his voice was raspy, and Peter glanced down to see that there was a ring of livid purple bruises around his skinny neck. “It’s – Pete – “

He cut himself off with a shaky exhale and Peter stopped taking in the tenderized meat that was attempting to pass off as Kraglin’s face and paid full attention to what he was trying to say. Kraglin, as a rule, did not hesitate. It was one of his charms, really, the way he generally just blurted out whatever he wanted to say, other people’s opinions be damned. “Krags, what’s going on?”

Kraglin sucked his swollen, cracked lip between his teeth, glancing off screen once before bringing his focus back to Peter. “You can’t _say anything_ , alright? I’m serious, Pete. Cap would have my damn hide if he knew I was callin’ ya right now.”

Peter rolled his eyes, waving his hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah, I know, he hates me now and whatever. Quit stalling and tell me what’s going on. You seriously look like Taserface right now and, buddy, that’s not a compliment.”

“He doesn’t – ugh, nevermind. Look, we was on a retrieval mission at the Collector’s place – “

Peter cut him off with a raised hand. “Hold on, hold on. The Collector’s place was _blown up_ six months ago, so what were you supposed to be getting there?”

The least swollen eye on Kraglin’s face squinted at him in what passed for a glare. “That’s not important right now, ya jackass. Just shut up and let me finish!” Peter raised his hands in surrender and Kraglin went on. “Anyway, we was supposed to be gettin’ something from the wreckage. Don’t know what anymore, because we didn’t end up finding it. But, Pete, somethin’ happened while we was searchin’.” He rubbed the back of his neck, rolling his head on his shoulders to relieve some tension. “It’s the Captain. I dunno what happened, but there was this plant and he touched it or somethin’. It shot some kinda green pollen at him, and he seemed _fine_ so we didn’t worry about it. But over the past week he’s been… changing, I guess.”

Realization slowly dawned on Peter, and he stared at Kragin’s injuries with renewed horror. “ _Yondu_ did that to you?” he choked, and shocked was too simple a word for what he was feeling because while Yondu had sometimes lashed or punched his men – Peter probably more than anyone, though he was man enough to admit he had deserved most of it – the brutality painted over Kraglin’s face was so beyond anything he’d ever have considered Yondu capable of. Besides, Kraglin and Yondu were, you know, _together._ Had been for years and years, and Peter didn’t pretend to understand how that relationship actually functioned but he’d never, not once, seen Yondu punish his first mate corporeally.

Kraglin scratched at a section of scab on his chin, flicking it away when it peeled off. “It ain’t as bad as it looks.”

“Bullshit,” Peter scoffed, brows drawing together in a frown. “Kraglin, this is… I mean, I know Yondu’s not the nicest but _what the fuck?_ Has this ever happened before?” He couldn’t believe he was asking the only somewhat parental figure in his life if he was being _abused_ by the man they’d both always admired (though Peter would eat his own foot before admitting that out loud).

“Fuck no! You think I’d just let somethin’ like this happen? Who do you think I am, kid?” Kraglin asked, looking at Peter like he was the galaxy’s biggest goddamn moron. Peter blushed, because, okay, Kraglin wasn’t Yondu’s first mate just because they fucked each other. He was smarter than he sounded, stronger than he looked, and damn devious when he needed to be.

“Alright, sorry. Wasn’t try’na offend your honor or some shit,” he said, scratching the end of his nose and darting his eyes away. “What happened then? Quit beating around the bush, man, the suspense is killing me here.”

Kraglin leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, and Peter caught a glimpse of a ring of dark bruises around each wrist at the action. “At first, it just seemed like he was in a shitty mood. Snappin’ at the crew more’n usual, dealing out a few more lashings than he woulda normally. But yesterday Taserface and Halfnut were talking about _you_ , about how Yondu shoulda killed you when he had the chance and the Cap’n just… lost it.”

Peter’s eyebrows had to be in his hairline by then, because since when did Yondu care enough about him to defend him like that?

“He whistled ‘em both right through, Pete, there in the mess like it was no big fuckin’ deal. The worst part is he didn’t even land a killing shot. Hit ‘em right through the throat so they bled out there on their trays.” Kraglin sighed and poked at his bottom lip, which was bleeding again after he’d chewed it. “I tried to go to him, ya know, _relieve some tension_ , but he just started screamin’ at me. I was stupid and yelled back, and the next thing I know Horuz is dragging my unconscious ass outta Yondu’s room and Yondu’s been locked inside.”

Peter whistled. “That’s some fuckin’ mess. Where’s Yondu now?”

“We overrode the locks on his door so he’s stuck inside fer now.”

“So, what’re you callin’ me for, Krags?” Peter asked at length, eyeing Kraglin suspiciously.

Kraglin glanced away, and Peter got the distinct impression that if he wasn’t so covered in cuts and bruises there would have been a high blush on his cheeks. His next words were nearly spat out, like they were being forcefully torn from his throat. “The captain… he’s always had a sorta soft spot for you. I was hopin’ maybe you could, I dunno, come here and try to talk to him?”

Peter couldn’t help his barking laughter. “Are we talking about the same Yondu here? Yea high, angry, strung me up and lashed me in front of the crew I don’t know how many times? Threatened to eat me for basically my whole life? That one?”

“Look, Pete, you know I wouldn’t ever call yer sorry ass like this if I thought there was another choice,” Kraglin said, and the sincerity in his voice was enough to make Peter’s smile falter. “I know yer off doin’ some weird heroic shit or whatever, don’t need us no more, but right now _we_ need _you_ before the crew decides it’s time to send the Cap out the damn airlock. Don’t pretend like you don’t care. I _know you_ , alright? I know you care about the captain, and I know even if you didn’t yer too damn sentimental to just let him die after ya damn near grew up under him.”

Peter let out a breath, deflating under the pressure of that pleading tone. If Kraglin was willing to do this, things must have been real serious. Pride was no small thing among Ravagers, Peter knew. “Yeah, alright. Send me your coordinates and we’ll make a pit stop by the _Eclector._ You got a picture of the plant he came into contact with?”

Kraglin nodded, tapping away on his comm to send the requested information. Peter’s own comm pinged with two incoming files and Kraglin looked up at him with a half-smile. “Thanks, Pete. If this works I’ll really owe you one.”

Peter nodded and the connection cut off. He rolled his chair over to hit the intercom on the wall. “Hey, Rocket. Change of plans. The Rigellians are just gonna have to wait because I got something I gotta do. I’m sending you coordinates now. Correct the course and let me know when we’re expected to arrive.”

Rocket’s acerbic voice crackled through the other line and Peter fought to roll his eyes. “Who died and made you the damn boss, Quill?”

“It’s my fuckin’ ship, you stupid trash panda! Just do it, man,” he snapped, clicking off the intercom and sending the coordinates through. He knew Rocket would comply; the jackass just liked to give him a hard time.

Once the message had sent Peter pulled up the other file, and a holo image of the plant glowed to life over his desk. It looked almost like a tiger lily, except it was positively _massive_ , with vibrant purple petals and radioactive green stamens at the center. “Well, it’s his own damn fault for touching this thing. It’s fucking glowing, for crying out loud!” he grumbled, zooming in on the center of the plant for a better look.

Peter jumped when he heard a voice at his shoulder, having entirely forgotten about his bed guest. “That’s a mating flower,” the guy said, reaching out as if to touch the image.

Peter gaped. “Excuse me? It’s a what now?”

“A mating flower. Certain species don’t really copulate like you do, and they use the pollen from flowers like this one to jump-start the mating drive when the time comes.” He paused, wrapping the sheet tighter around his waist. “It is most common amongst species who spare too few thoughts for forming familial bonds; a way to make sure their species lives on.”

Peter eyed him suspiciously. “You’re mysteriously well-versed in this weird shit.”

The man laughed, green eyes sparkling. “Peter, you picked me up outside a university. I am what you call an anthropology student.”

Fuck, had he picked up a college student? He sure _looked_ of age with his strong thick limbs and square jaw peppered with white stubble, but it wouldn't be the first time Peter had gotten in trouble for not bothering to check age or, you know, marital status.

He shook his head, pulling his thoughts back to the most important issue here. “So, what, Yondu’s trying to kill everyone so that he can _mate_ with them? That doesn’t make any goddamn sense!”

“Yondu is a Centaurian name, yes? I do not know about your friend, but some Centaurian tribes must prove themselves worthy of a partner by besting them in combat. I would hazard a guess that he is attempting to test his potential mates.” He trailed his fingers down Peter’s neck, leaning down so he could place a kiss at his collarbone. “You are strong, for a Terran. If you go to him I feel confident you will succeed.”

Peter jerked away as if he’d been burned, chair toppling to the ground in his haste to stand and put some distance between him and the guy. “No fucking _way_ am I – ugh – _mating_ with Yondu! That’s – that’s ridiculous! Someone else on the crew can do it!”

The man – Troy, his goddamn name was _Troy_ – raised one white eyebrow at him, clearly amused. “Did you know some in my species have empathic abilities? I could feel when I was touching you that the idea thrilled you.”

“Well that’s just fucking great, thanks for telling me _now!_ ” Peter snapped, tossing his hands up in the air in frustration. “Not cool, man, you gotta tell people when you can read their damn thoughts. And even if I _had_ thought about sleeping with Yondu – which I fucking _haven’t,_ alright? – he’s been with Kraglin for _years._ Kraglin should be the one to satisfy this – this weird pollen shit.”

“Your Centaurian has already tested that man and clearly found him lacking. If he tries again it is entirely possible that he will perish.” Troy cocked his head to the side, messy white hair spilling over his tangerine shoulder. “You Terrans are very strange. On my planet it would be considered an honor to hold the place of a warrior mate.”

Peter was spared the need to reply by Rocket’s angry voice coming over the intercom, letting him know that they were en route to the _Eclector_ and would be there within twenty-four standard hours. He slammed his fist on the button to reply. “We gotta make a quick stop at the nearest planet to drop Troy off.”

“Fuckin’ Quill! You had someone on the ship this _whole time?_ Where the hell do you even _find_ these people?” Rocket grumbled. Peter didn’t answer, just cut off the connection and started searching for his shirt.

“Goddamn aliens,” he mumbled, digging around in the furs for a glimpse of color. “And their weird fuckin’ practices. This is why Terrans belong on _Earth_ , dammit, so we don’t get caught up in this kinda freaky bullshit.”

“Here,” Troy said, holding out Peter’s blue T-Shirt with a serene smile. Peter snatched it out of his hand and pulled it on, trying very hard not to freak out.

As he sat back down at his desk and set to researching this guy’s claims, he couldn’t help his mind from wandering to his former captain, wondering what it would feel like to have all that power at his disposal. He couldn’t say he’d never wondered, what with how debauched Kraglin looked after a long night spent with Yondu. The sudden tightness in his pants caused him to shift to accommodate it and he groaned.

Fuck, he was screwed.

\------

Hours later, when Troy had been dropped off on a space station (with a kiss goodbye so hot it nearly made Peter regret not taking him one more time), and Peter had researched to the point that his eyes were stinging and watering, he shut off his holopad and leaned back in his chair. Centaurians were a bunch of secretive motherfuckers, and it had taken him _forever_ to just figure out where to get information on them from. What he _had_ found had been a set of complicated reports from _Xandar_ , of all places, and what he could gather was that sometime around sixty years ago an exploratory mission had been undertaken and lead a team of Anthropologists to Centauri-IV. Buried amongst the pages and pages of complicated bullshit, Peter had found what he’d been looking for in a personal journal entry from one of the anthropologists:

_‘Centaurians pair off solely to reproduce, focusing mainly on keeping their villages thriving. They do not otherwise form intimate relationships, which I’ve been told had at some point led to a decline in their population. To compensate, they began to grow a type of flower (their name for it is a sort of whistling click sound, but I’ll call it simply the mating flower for ease) which, when the pollen is inhaled taps into their primitive mating drive. This happens in a ceremony involving the entire village (it’s almost like a birthday, actually, once a year for each unmated individual), and once the “fever” – as they call it – begins to rage the partaker becomes consumed with his/her drive to mate._

_Those of the opposite sex from the partaker then come to him/her one by one and engage in hand to hand combat. As far as I can tell, the goal is to best the partaker for the right to mate with them. Once that happens, the victor also partakes in the mating flower and they set about their task. Their mating lasts for two to three days, at the end of which their mating drive seems to be satiated and they return to life as usual._

_I’ve been told by my guide that if a partaker does not find a suitable mate, the drive does not dissipate, but rather burns hotter and hotter until the person eventually succumbs to death as a result. Occasionally when a partner of the opposite sex cannot be found, someone of the same sex manages to fulfill the need, though to the Centaurians this is seen as a waste of pollen and it is generally frowned upon.’_

Peter recalled the entry, having all but committed it to memory when he’d re-read it what felt like a hundred times in an attempt to find some clue that he was misunderstanding. He fell back into his furs with a groan, tossing his arm over his eyes. There had been no misunderstanding. It was right there for him to read: Even if Yondu didn’t get torn apart by the crew for his mental state, he was going to literally die of blue-balls if he didn’t fuck someone for _two to three goddamn days._

Kraglin was gonna fucking _love_ this, he thought as he recalled the pulpy mess of the man’s face. Peter knew for an absolute fact that there was no way Kraglin was going to be able to best Yondu in hand-to-hand combat. He had to weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet, skinny and slippery and no doubt a good fighter, but Yondu was all bulky corded muscle, strong and thick. Peter had seen him lift three-hundred pounds once like it was nothing. Add to that the fact that he was a damn dirty fighter, and impossibly quick on his feet to boot, you had an extremely ill-matched fight.

The question was: could _Peter_ best him?

He’d been thinking about it constantly, a nagging little thought stabbing at the back of his mind for hours and hours, and as hard as he tried he could not come up with a single person aside from Kraglin who he’d trust to “mate” with Yondu. He couldn’t think of a single person who _Yondu_ wouldn’t literally kill once he’d left his weird horny blind rage fest except for, according to Kraglin, Peter himself. Sure, Kraglin hadn’t known he was offering up his surrogate son to his sort-of-lover for a two-day fuck fest, but he’d more or less implied that the only person he knew Yondu trusted outside of himself was Peter.

So here he came back to those two all-consuming questions: _could_ he win a fight against Yondu, and – most importantly – did he _want_ to?

The answer to the second question was surprisingly significantly easier to answer than the first one. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered what it would be like to have – be had? How was that going to work? – the prickly captain for a night or two. In fact, since he’d sat down to start his research he’d had a near constant half chub going on from thinking about it. So, yeah, he guessed that there was a part of him that really _did_ want to.

On to the slightly more complicated question of whether he was going to be able to or end up looking a hot fucking mess like Kraglin did. He’d sparred with Yondu quite often when he was younger and never come close to besting the older man, but the last time had been three years and eighty pounds ago. Back then there had been none of his current significant bulk, and he’d been far less experienced of a fighter.

Now?

He looked down at his bare chest, at his well-defined pecs, strong abs, and biceps almost as thick as his head. Not counting his work with the guardians as of late, he’d been the victor in plenty of fights over the past three years. Bar fights, ambushes, fights with Yondu’s crew – he’d come out on top more often than not in a good majority. He was about Yondu’s size now when it came to bulk, and taller too, but there was still a little bit of doubt in his mind. Looks could be deceiving, and Yondu wasn’t _human_. Who knew what his species’ strength looked like?

Peter sighed, rubbing his palm over his eye. He knew already that his deliberating was goddamn pointless. The fact of the matter was that, try as he might to fight it, he’d _always_ cared about Yondu. Kraglin was right about that, and about the fact that he was a fucking bleeding heart and even if he didn’t care about their captain as much as he did he would do this just because he knew it was the right thing to do. Even if there was only a slim chance he was going to succeed in this, he knew he was going to try because he was Peter fucking Quill, the only jackass in the galaxy who couldn’t shake his Terran sentimental bullshit.

Once the idea had solidified he was able to relax, body melting back into the furs, sudden weariness overtaking him. He fell asleep to thoughts of naked blue skin, of sweaty writhing bodies, of panting grunts and moans.


	2. Asking For It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I love that so many people are here for fuck or die! You people give me life lol. Hope you like the update!

As promised, by the time twenty-four standard hours had passed the _Milano_ was docking in the hangar of the _Eclector_ . Peter was pacing, back and forth, back and forth in the cockpit, the steady _clanking_ of his boots driving the others to distraction. He hadn’t told them what he was doing coming back here (god, how _could_ he tell them that?), only that Yondu needed him and even though he knew that their parting had been less than savory he still couldn’t say no to his old captain.

“For what it’s worth, I still think that this is a shitty idea. After what you pulled with the infinity stone I’m surprised Yondu hasn’t tried to kill you already,” Rocket said, scratching idly at the end of his nose. “That guy’s got a reputation that makes me look like a goddamn fairy princess.”

“Oh, really? I had _no idea_ that Yondu had a bad reputation. Thanks _so much_ for letting me know,” Peter bit out, bitter sarcasm perhaps a bit of an overreaction to the situation as far as the others were concerned. It didn’t matter what they thought, though, he was too wrapped up in his own near-panic to spare a thought for their opinions on his attitude.

Fuck, what was he thinking? Could he really do this? He still had no idea whether or not he could really beat Yondu in a fight, and even if he did how the actual fuck was he supposed to spend _two days_ getting fucked? Terrans just didn’t work like that. He eyed Gamora, wondering if there was anything she could suggest if he manned up and told her what was going on. She was the world-wise one, the most practical of all of them. The problem was that he _really_ didn’t want to have that conversation.

In the end it turned out that he was a bit of a coward, and by the time the ramp was lowering he had lost his opportunity to talk to her. When they descended the ramp he noticed that Kraglin was already there, waiting with his arms crossed, boot tapping restlessly on the ground.

“Quill! Took ya long enough,” he snapped, clearly testy. His face hadn’t gotten better with time, Peter noticed. If anything, his eyes were more swollen and his scabs were thicker.

“Holy shit, you look like someone took a fuckin’ meat tenderizer to your face!” Rocket said, cackling.

Kraglin flipped him the bird. “Ya’ll can get right the fuck off the ship. I only need Quill.”

Rocket smirked at him, pulling out his blaster rifle. “Make me.”

“Rocket! For the love of - put the damn gun away, man!” Peter snapped, stepping between the two. “What's _wrong_ with you?”

“What?” Rocket asked, lowering his gun. “All’s I’m sayin’ is we ain’t leavin’ you here. Show some damn gratitude, will ya?”

Peter groaned, tossing his hands up in exasperation. “Look, Kraglin’s right anyway. This is gonna take a few days. You guys might as well go finish that job for the Rigellians while you wait. I think you can make it there in time if you push the jump drive.”

“Peter, we cannot leave you here on your own,” Drax said, frowning and stepping forward to whisper - very loudly - conspiratorially in Peter’s ear. “These people are not honorable. Look at this man. He is hideous! Someone clearly did not trust him.”

Kraglin raised his blaster with a snarl that would have been more menacing if his lip wasn’t so swollen that it barely moved. “Hey! Shut yer goddamn mouth before I do it for you!”

“You could not shut my mouth for me if you tried,” Drax said, laughing boisterously. “You are too stupid and puny.”

The bickering began anew, Drax, Rocket, and Kraglin all shouting over one another, the cacophony peppered with Groot’s tiny angry exclamations. Peter sighed and rubbed his temple. They didn’t have time for this shit. He watched as Groot screamed and jumped onto Kraglin’s neck, stabbing him repeatedly in the ear with one long rooty finger.

He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he turned he saw that it was Gamora, gazing at him knowingly. “Do you want us to go, Peter?”

“I think it’d be best if you did,” he said, chewing his lip in thought. “What Yondu needs me for… I just don’t want the others to know about it. Besides, _clearly_ they’re incapable of getting along with the other Ravagers.”

Gamora turned to watch the other’s antics, hand still on Peter’s shoulder. “You know you can tell me, right? Whatever it is, Peter, if we can help we want to.”

Peter laughed at _that_ image, of the clusterfuck that would turn into. “I really appreciate that, but there’s seriously nothing you can do.” He turned back to watch Rocket launch himself at Kraglin’s head, Drax doubling over in laughter as the man flailed. “Except, you know, get them out of here before someone gets killed.”

She nodded, giving his shoulder one last squeeze before squaring her shoulders and turning back to the others. “ _Rocket! Groot!_ Cease what you’re doing this instant!”

Everyone froze at the sharp, angry tone of her voice and Peter would be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed. She placed her hands on her hips and raised one brow at Drax, whose laughter instantly sobered. “We have a _job_ to do! Or do you want to lose thirty-thousand units so you can beat up this strange little man?”

“I ain’t a strange little man!” Kraglin barked, glaring from between Rocket’s legs.

Rocket looked like he was seriously considering saying fuck the job and continuing on, but one quelling look from Gamora seemed to change his mind. He huffed, punching Kraglin in the back of the head one more time before hopping down. Groot followed, using one long vine attached to Kraglin’s ear to swing down and land on Rocket’s shoulder. “Alright, fine. But if Quill dies here you can’t say I didn’t fuckin’ try.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I’m not gonna _die_ , man. First of all, this jackass raised me. He ain’t gonna waste all that effort by killing me.” Kraglin muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a denial but Peter ignored him. “Second of all, give me some damn credit here. I’m not a goddamn invalid!”

“Coulda fooled me,” Rocket mumbled, snorting before heading back to the ship. “Well call us if you live through… whatever the fuck you’re doing here.”

The others followed suit, wishing him luck and heading to the _Milano_ , and before he knew it he and Kraglin were alone in the hangar watching his ship fly away. He rolled his neck, tense suddenly with the thought of the conversation he was about to have. How was he even supposed to start? Was there a delicate way to put something like this? Shit, this was going to suck. Maybe he could somehow _not_ tell him, like just pretend they were in there fighting for two days.

Fuck, that was stupid.

“Yondu has to fuck me,” he blurted suddenly in his panic, eyes going wide. He slapped a hand over his mouth and stared as Kraglin slowly turned his narrowed eyes towards him.

“The fuck did you just say to me, Quill?” Kraglin asked, voice dangerously low, and Peter had been whooped enough times by the man growing up to know when his tone meant a beating was imminent. Not that Kraglin could hurt him _now,_ but still.

“Wait, hold on, hear me out,” he soothed, raising both hands in a placating gesture. He realized suddenly that they were in public on the _Eclector_ , and when he turned he saw that a few men were walking into the room already. “Er, but first maybe we should go somewhere a little more private?”

Kraglin didn’t say a word, just turned on his heel and walked away, Peter following quickly after. If Peter thought that the trek through the halls of the _Eclector_ was going to give him enough time to come up with a more eloquent way to put the situation he was terribly wrong. By the time they reached Yondu’s conference room and Kraglin shut the door behind them he was no closer to figuring out how to tell the other man what was going on.

Kraglin turned to him and leaned on the round table at the center of the room, arms crossed, and his face was too swollen to raise an eyebrow but Peter imagined he was trying. “Let’s try that again, huh? Coz I’m pretty sure what I heard ain’t what you meant to say.”

“Yeah, no, I was serious.” Peter sat down in one of the chairs farthest from Yondu’s first mate. “The flower that… er… pollinated him is some kinda mating flower from his home planet. You know, the Collector had a whole bunch of weird shit in his place.” He pulled out his holopad and started bringing up the info he’d found about the plant. “Anyway, I did some digging and I found out that the people on his planet don’t, you know, become intimate very often - which, you’ll have to tell me how _that_ works between you guys then coz I gotta tell ya I’ve accidentally walked in on you two before so I know he doesn’t have a problem with it.”

He found the highlighted clip of text from the diary entry and expanded it, turning the pad around and handing it to a still silent Kraglin. “Says here that to counter that, his species basically takes this flower kinda like a drug and it taps into their primitive mating drive or whatever. Pretty much, someone has to fight him and beat him and then they gotta let him fuck them. For - er - two to three days I guess.”

Kraglin was staring down at the screen, and Peter shifted uncomfortably in his seat, itching to move but making a valiant attempt at patience. When Kraglin had presumably read the whole passage he sighed and tossed the pad back to Peter, who flailed trying to catch it. “Well if someone’s gonna fuck ‘im for three days, I guess he could do worse than you.”

Peter could do nothing but gape because what the fuck?

Kraglin noticed his slack-jawed look on confusion and snorted, rubbing gingerly at the ring of bruises on his neck. “Look, clearly I ain’t gonna be able to do it. Look at me. I ain’t stupid. There ain’t no way I could beat Yondu in a fight on the best of days. Throw these bruises and shit into the mix? No fuckin’ way.”

“But, I mean - you and Yondu - “ God damn, how many times was he gonna have to talk to Kraglin about _feelings_ this week? “You’re not upset? I mean, you and Yondu have been together for, you know, _years._ You’re just gonna be okay with someone else fucking him?”

Peter frowned as Kraglin snorted once, twice, and then burst out in raucous laughter, bending at the waist to grasp his knees. “What the fuck’re you laughing at, man? I’m serious!”

“I know,” Kraglin wheezed, wiping tears of mirth from his purple swollen eyes. “I know you are, that’s the best damn part!”

“I don’t - what? Dude, what’s going on?” Peter asked, exasperated. He’d been agonizing over this conversation for twenty-four damn hours and here Kraglin was, laughing at him like he was the galaxy’s biggest fucking clown.

“Pete, come on. You thought that, what, me n Yondu were - “ he snorted again and Peter glared. “lovers? You think we’re givin’ each other flowers n shit or what?”

Heat suffused Peter’s face, spreading steadily from his neck to the tops of his cheeks. “Well, I mean, I didn’t think you were giving each other _flowers_ but I know you’re together. You can’t tell me you’re not! I’ve caught you guys fucking so many times - which, traumatizing much? - there’s no way you can deny it.”

“Kid, you said it. Yondu and I fuck. That’s it,” Kraglin said, _finally_ sobering and looking up at Peter with a little quirk of his lips. “We ain’t never been _exclusive._ We’re Ravagers, for the love of fuck. We don’t do that romantic shit.” He picked at one of the scabs under his eye absently. “Sometimes I forget that I never managed to beat the Terran out of ya. Ya’ll do that sentimental bullshit, mate for life and whatever. Out here in space, that doesn’t really happen all that often. Yondu and I fuck when we wanna, but when we’s in port? We do who we want, what we want, when we want. That’s it.”

Peter decided that correcting Kraglin on his ‘Terrans mate for life’ comment was probably not high enough priority for him to bother with, though he did wonder where he got that notion from. There weren’t nearly as many Terrans out in space as there were other species, and it was always interesting to see what others thought about their culture. “So, you’re okay with this then?”

“Am I okay with you screwing the captain so he _doesn’t die?_ ” Kraglin asked, incredulous. “I dunno, Pete, guess I’ll have to think about that one.”

“No need to be a dick,” Peter snapped, and though he’d never admit it he was definitely feeling relieved; a little sheepish maybe, too, but relief was the main thing. “Any idea how I’m going to _not die_ from this? I don’t know what kind of refractory period your species has, but Terrans generally aren’t able to go for _three days straight_.”

Kraglin took the subject change for what it was, and scooched back until he was sitting on the table with his long thin legs swinging underneath. “Well we kept the flower. Says there that yer supposed to use it, right?”

“You _what?_ ” Peter yelped, launching to his feet so fast the chair flew out from under him. “You seriously kept the goddamn flower? _Dude!_ Can you imagine what would happen if that thing made its rounds among the crew? They’d tear each other apart!”

“I dunno, a ship-wide orgy sounds like it could be a lotta fun,” Kraglin said, snickering.

“That is disgusting. What is wrong with - you know what?” He shook his head. “Nevermind. I’ll bring the freaky flower with me into Yondu’s room and if he doesn’t kill me I’ll use it, but then we’re destroying it, alright? Seriously, I’m like the goddamn king of stupid ideas and even I think it’s irresponsible to have that on a ship full of already angry aliens.”

Kraglin sucked his teeth. “It’s already in his room. He’s got a cabinet in there with the things he doesn’t want the crew gettin’ their hands on.”

Peter let out a long, shaky breath, running a hand through his already messy ginger hair. “Guess there’s nothin’ left but to do this then, huh?” His nerves were definitely back, he noticed as his heart seemed to skip. Was it anticipation or fear? A decidedly unhealthy mix of both, he imagined.

Kraglin jumped down from his seat on the table and clapped a hand to Peter’s shoulder. “I'll let ya into his room, but other than that I ain't opening that door for nothin’. Yondu’s a scary motherfucker on his best days. Like this?” He shuddered, rubbing at the bruises on his neck. “I don’t wanna risk him gettin’ loose on the ship again.”

“Wait, wait, wait! What if I can’t beat him?” Peter asked, shrugging off Kraglin’s hand. “You’re just gonna, what, let me die in there?”

“Hey, if it’s you are the rest’a the damn crew…” Kraglin shrugged his scrawny shoulders, and Peter thought that _maybe_ he was just being a dick. He wouldn’t _actually_ let the kid he’d raised die just like that.

Right?

Before he knew it Peter was standing in front of the big metal door to Yondu’s room, clammy hands clenched at his sides, a bead of sweat trailing down his neck and into the collar of his shirt. He rolled his neck twice before shrugging off his jacket - the same one he’d had since Yondu gave it to him at eighteen years old as a reward for successfully completing his first solo mission - and handing it to Kraglin. “Don’t you dare lose that.”

Kraglin took it from him with a sort-of-raised brow, gesturing at the blasters strapped to his thighs with his other hand. “What about those?”

Peter leveled him with a quelling look, clasping his hand to one of them protectively. “Are you kidding me? This is my last line of defense!”

“Ya know the captain still has his arrow, right? If he decides to kill ya, them things ain’t gonna do you no good,” Kraglin said, holding out his hand expectantly.

Against every instinct telling him to cling to them for dear life, Peter unstrapped the holsters from his thighs, one after the other, and handed them to the other man. He felt unbelievably naked without them, exposed and vulnerable, and that maybe said something about the state of his psychological well-being. He hopped from foot to foot a couple of times, shaking out the tension in his arms, trying to get his blood pumping, his adrenaline going. “Alright Krags, I’m ready.”

“I’ll check on ya through the comm every once in awhile. Make sure yer not dead,” Kraglin said, and if Peter didn’t know any better he’d say that the man sounded a little worried; whether it was for his well-being or Yondu’s he wasn’t entirely sure.

Peter nodded once and faced the door, ready as he’d ever be, he supposed, for this latest fuckery of a mess in his life. “Good to go, man.”

“Good luck, Pete,” was all Kraglin said, all the warning he got, before the locks on the door clicked and it swished open in front of him. He dashed inside as quickly as he could, quelling his natural instinct to try and escape once the door snicked shut behind him.

\------

Though he’d tried his very hardest not to think about it at all, Peter had definitely had some expectations about what he would find when he entered Yondu’s quarters. He’d been picturing shattered furniture, broken glass, a destroyed mattress. Yondu, maybe, angry and feral and quite probably naked; all sorts of things had been spinning around in his mind, but whatever he’d been imagining it certainly hadn’t been this.

The room was… well, clean. There wasn’t so much as a pair of pants on the floor, let alone the bits of wood and glass from hurricane Yondu that Peter had been expecting. His heart thudded in his chest when his eyes landed on the man himself, sitting on the edge of his bed, naked torso half-buried in his nest of Ravager red furs. Yondu’s head was in his hands, his elbows resting on his leather-clad thighs, and his scarred muscular back was heaving with the force of his panting breaths. He had a new implant, Peter noticed, like a sleek red mohawk at the crest of his head.

“Pete…” he mumbled, though Peter knew for a fact that he hadn’t looked up since he’d entered. “Peter, what’re ya doing here? I can smell you, boy, like ozone.” He groaned, fingers digging into his scalp, and Peter had no idea what he was supposed to do. The fact that Yondu could talk at all was a surprise to him. He’d been imagining a sort of feral angry animal, all caveman grunts and flying fists. He’d been prepared for that, but this? How was he supposed to deal with a coherent Yondu in this situation?

He took a hesitant step forward, jolting when Yondu’s head jerked up at the soft sound of his boot on the floor. The action made him freeze in place. “Hey, Yondu. What’s - uh - how’s it goin’ man?”

Yondu’s pupils were so blown that the black was nearly swallowing the red of his irises, and the way that those eyes were roving up and down Peter’s body, sizing him up, caused him to shudder. Their eyes met, and Yondu sucked in a deep breath. “You - “ he huffed, screwing his eyes shut like he was trying to block out a bright light. “Why are you here, Quill?”

This was good, Peter thought as he took another careful step closer. He could work with this. At least Yondu was cognizant of his surroundings enough to be asking questions, right? At least Peter hadn’t been knocked on his ass yet. Maybe the pollen was wearing off. “Kraglin called me. Said you’d gotten into some kinda flower at the Collector’s place.” He took another step closer, and Yondu stiffened, nostrils flaring. “I’m here to help.”

That, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. Yondu’s eyes snapped open and he was on his feet so quickly Peter didn’t even have time to jump back. He gasped as Yondu’s hands buried themselves in the collar of his shirt, as he was pushed until his back collided violently with the metal wall behind him. Yondu’s face was inches from his, so close he could feel his harsh panting breaths across his lips, and even though he was definitely scared he couldn't help the little tingle of arousal in his lower belly.

“ _Help?_ ” Yondu all but hissed, shoving Peter harder into the wall. “You wanna _help_ after that shit you pulled with the orb? _Twice?”_

Peter held up his hands placatingly, trying and failing to ignore the insane heat seeping off of the captain’s body and through his clothes. “Hey, look, I'm sorry about - “

“No! Shut the fuck up! You're _sorry?”_ Yondu seethed, and Peter heard the threads on his shirt starting to tear with the force of the grip the captain had on the garment. “You - do you have _any idea_ the kinda shit you caused for me?”

Peter could feel the fight brewing in the tense set of Yondu’s shoulders, in the rising thickness of the air, in the crackle of electricity between them. He shivered, and the familiar feeling of intense focus he got before every fight washed over him as he looked up to meet Yondu’s livid gaze. He needed to get this started on his own terms, before Yondu had the chance to work himself into a real rage. He steeled himself, knowing full well that what he was about to do was monumentally stupid. “You deserve every shit situation you got, _Captain._ You deserve whatever the fuck happened to you. Consider it fucking retribution for _kidnapping me_ when I was just a goddamn kid!”

He shoved Yondu back, pushed until there was a little more space between them, until Yondu’s iron grip on his shirt loosened and he felt like he could breathe again. “Consider it retribution for breaking the Ravager code. Oh, yeah, I know about that. I ran into someone from another Ravager clan a few months ago and they told me about your _disgrace_ , about how you were banished for what you did to me.”

He'd also beaten that other Ravager to within an inch of his life for the way he was talking about Yondu, punched him so many times in the face that he wouldn't have enough teeth to repeat the nasty smirk he'd had when talking about what a piece of shit everyone thought Yondu was. Yondu didn't need to know that, though, and as his blue lips pulled back over his jagged teeth in an ugly snarl Peter knew his taunting had done the trick. Before the other man could move he launched himself forward, muscles bunching, putting his whole weight behind the attack. Yondu hadn't been expecting it, and Peter met almost no resistance as his arms wrapped around Yondu's thick waist and their momentum sent them tumbling to the ground. They landed in a heap with Peter's thighs straddling Yondu's waist, Peter's ass pressed into Yondu's crotch.

Yondu recovered quickly, and before Peter knew it he was letting out a wordless scream of rage, drawing his fist back to land a breathtaking punch in Peter's side. Peter grunted, reaching down to get a grip on Yondu's arms, but before he could the captain was bucking and their positions were switching. Knowing that pinned down was a very bad place to be, Peter maneuvered his knees between them and shoved with everything he had, sending the captain sailing back into the foot of the bed.

He scrambled to his feet, keeping a wary eye on the other man as he did the same. Yondu was panting, implant flickering on and off, washing him and the room in a red glow. He snarled at Peter again before careening across the room towards the Terran. Peter caught his jaw in a hard punch, sending his head snapping back, but Yondu rolled with it, bending at the knees and landing a shoulder check to Peter's stomach.

“Fuckin’ ungrateful - huff - Terran asshole!” Yondu barked, grabbing a fistful of Peter's hair and trying to yank his head down to meet with a knee. Peter twisted, breaking his hold and using his elbow to knock the breath out of him.

“I ain't fuckin’ _ungrateful!”_ Peter snapped, his own anger rising with every hit one of them landed. “I appreciate _everything_ you did for me. Except for the part where you _stole me from my goddamn family!”_

Yondu took advantage of his distraction and caught him around the waist, whirling them around and slamming Peter into the wall so hard his head bounced off of it. Peter groaned, trying to shake off the stars he was seeing while simultaneously swinging his leg up to try and sweep Yondu’s ankles. He missed, possibly due to dizziness but most likely due to Yondu's quick thinking, and before he knew it Yondu had grabbed him by his neck and swung him around. Peter yanked out of his hold and spun, aiming his elbow at Yondu’s throat. Yondu dodged, and Peter ended up hitting him in the chest instead.

“I didn’t _steal you,”_ Yondu snapped, grabbing hold of Peter’s upper arm and yanking their bodies together. Peter hissed as Yondu’s nails dug into his flesh, pulling his knee up to hit Yondu in the side. Yondu yelped at the force of it, but didn’t drop Peter’s arm, instead bringing their faces closer together. “I _saved yer goddamn life_ , boy.”

The heat radiating off of Yondu’s body was almost enough to burn and Peter wondered how much more Yondu was going to be able to take before the fever damaged him permanently. That’s what the diary entry said, right? That if the fever wasn’t satisfied it would burn hotter and hotter until the person died?

“You literally abducted me from the hospital where my entire family was,” Peter grunted, pushing his back into the wall for some leverage and bringing one leg up between them. He planted his foot in Yondu’s stomach and _shoved_ , finally breaking his iron grip on his bicep. Yondu’s nails left long gashes in his flesh as they were ripped away and Peter fought to ignore the sting. “What were you saving me from? The goddamn fireflies? Stop trying to make yourself feel better about being a fucking kidnapper.”

Yondu shook his head, pressing a palm into his eye, groaning, and Peter’s heart lurched in worry. The captain’s lip was split, a trickle of red blood dripping down his chin from it. “You - fuck! It’s so fuckin’ hot - you were runnin’ away, boy. You can’t - hff - you _wanted_ to leave.” He shook his head once more, dropping his hand and training his unfocused eyes on Peter. “I just got to you before someone worse coulda.”

Without warning, Yondu launched himself at Peter once more, one hand wrapping around his throat and the other coming up to shove at his chest. His shoulder crashed into something hard, he heard a deafening shatter, and as the glass rained down around him he caught a brief whiff of something sweet and fruity, a glance at the mating flower housed in the cabinet his head was currently in, and then his body was jerked away and he was careening across the room to collide with another wall.

Fuck, he'd inhaled the goddamn pollen. What did that mean? Was he already feeling dizzy, or was that just his imagination? Yondu hadn’t gone apeshit for an entire week after getting hit, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t feeling the effects right away. Peter had no fucking clue how this freaky alien shit worked, but as Yondu’s body crashed into his and they fell to the floor in a heap of flailing limbs, he knew that he needed to end this as quickly as possible.

Yondu landed on top of Peter, thighs spread over his wide torso, panting and snarling, eyes glassy. Peter didn’t give him an opportunity to land another hit, just pushed up with his hips until his feet were flat on the ground and flipped them. As they fell he brought one hand up to wrap around Yondu’s throat, grasping his right wrist with the other one so that when they settled and he’d straddled Yondu’s hips he had him pinned. Blood was dripping down Peter’s arm where Yondu’s nails had raked him and he was panting, already feeling the unmistakable heat of the flower’s fever. Yondu tried to use his free hand to claw at Peter, and Peter used his hold on his throat to pull his head up and send it crashing back to the floor.

“Let - fucking goddamnit, boy, let me go!” Yondu growled, clawing at Peter’s wrist, trying to push up with his hips.

Peter tightened his hold on Yondu’s throat, lips pulling back in an imitation of Yondu’s snarl, pupils expanding. He leaned down, catching Yondu’s angry gaze, and he felt a heady sort of power, the heat radiating through his limbs lending him a feeling of dominance. He didn’t even feel his wounds anymore, could barely feel Yondu’s nails digging into his arm. His entire focus was on his hand at Yondu’s throat, on that strong fluttering pulse under his fingertips. “Submit,” he snarled, hardly recognizing the low rasp of his own voice.

Yondu bucked his hips, nearly dislodging Peter, and Peter let go of his throat so he could grab his other wrist. He yanked Yondu’s arms down and pinned them under his knees, pressing down until he could swear he felt the bones grind together before grasping his neck once more. He slapped him, just once, the force of it snapping Yondu’s head to the side. “I. Said. _Submit!”_

Yondu caught his eye once more and Peter’s fingers tightened over his throat as if against his will. Yondu gasped, trying to break Peter’s hold, trying to move, trying to get any sort of leverage. Peter didn’t know if it was due to his own iron control or due to the fever raging in Yondu’s body, but every attempt to break away failed. He watched as Yondu settled, body shaking, watched with a savage satisfaction as his wild, angry captain let the fight drain out of him.

“Submit,” Peter said again, and he was definitely feeling the pollen now because as Yondu broke their stare and pushed his head back, baring his long neck in clear submission, Peter felt his dick starting to fill, straining against the zipper on his leather pants.

“ _Please,_ ” Yondu groaned, and when his hips bucked this time it was clear from the hot drag of his dick over Peter's ass that he was no longer trying to escape. “Please, Petey. It’s so fuckin’ hot. I can’t - I need - hff - _please.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Kraglin to me is just this cute little blank slate of a character, and I love messing around with his development. I just think he's so adorable and needs more life <3  
> The next chapter is going to have so much filthy smut, guys.  
> Be prepared ;)  
> Your comments and kudos keep me breathing and I appreciate them more than you know!


	3. Closer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this update it "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails. Check it out because I think it totally fits ;)   
> This is rapidly turning from short and porny to long and feelings-filled so I hope you guys are in it for the long haul lol.   
> Enjoy!

“ _ Please,”  _ Yondu groaned again, and even through the fever’s haze Peter was able to spare a thought that the captain would be mortified about his needy begging if he remembered this when it was over. He was pushing his hips up, grinding his hard length against Peter’s ass with every rise, sweat beading at his temples, a faint purple flush on his cheeks and Peter couldn’t remember ever seeing something so overwhelmingly arousing in his life. 

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, attempting to gain back some semblance of the control the pollen had taken from him. It was no use, he already knew, because as Yondu’s hips canted up once more he found himself pressing back to meet him, hyper-focused on the pressure against his ass, on the feeling of Yondu’s thick torso between his legs, on the burning heat seeping into his thighs. He let go of Yondu’s neck and instead used that hand to drag his nails down Yondu’s naked chest, marvelling at the way the captain arched up into the touch as if it were giving him life. 

“What do you need, Yondu?” he husked, reaching up and tweaking one of Yondu’s navy blue nipples, pushing back to meet another one of the captain’s thrusts. “Tell me - hff - tell me what you need me to do.” 

When Yondu pulled at the arms still trapped under Peter’s knees Peter shifted so he could free them, and then there were two hands thrusting up under his shirt, raking burning hot fingers down his sides. “It’s so fuckin’  _ hot _ , Petey, I can’t - been burning for  _ days _ and I can’t take it anymore.” He pushed Peter’s shirt hastily up, growling in frustration when he couldn’t get enough leverage to pull it all the way over his head. “Off, off, get this shit  _ off!”  _

Peter hastily complied, ripping the garment over his head and tossing it to the side. Yondu shifted, pushing Peter backwards in his lap as he pulled himself into some semblance of a sitting position, grasping Peter’s hips with a bruising grip and pushing down so that Peter was pressed firmly against his subtly rolling hips. The captain’s shift from needy and submissive to rough and dominant happened so quickly Peter’s head spun, but the pollen’s influence on him kept him rolling with it. Whatever Yondu needed, whatever his mate wanted he could have. Peter was here for his use, a malleable vessel for anything and everything required to soothe the flower’s burning fever. 

Yondu wrapped his thickset arms around Peter’s waist and pulled so that he could run his tongue over the already hard nub of Peter’s nipple, the slightly-rougher-than-Terran texture of the muscle unbelievably arousing. Peter arched into the feeling, dropping his hands to rest on Yondu’s shoulders, pushing his hips forward to grind his aching cock against Yondu’s taught stomach. 

He groaned as Yondu moved his questing tongue up to the column of his throat, licking and sucking, panting against his skin. His own hands were in constant motion, running over Yondu’s back and shoulders, stroking up to run his thumb along Yondu’s stubbled jaw, digging his nails into Yondu’s biceps. He felt every touch as if his entire being were in it, as if each and every drag of Yondu’s teeth, every rub of his cock against his ass was the center of his universe. 

Yondu shifted again, pushing back so that Peter was helpless to do anything but let himself fall backwards, legs still wrapped around Yondu’s hips. “Need you, Pete - fuck, I  _ need _ you,” Yondu panted, dragging his fingers down Peter’s sides to dip into the waistband of his much too tight leather pants. Not want, but  _ need _ , and Peter knew without a doubt that he meant it because he too felt that overwhelming, all-consuming, burning  _ need _ , like an ache in his veins.

“Yondu,” Peter groaned, reaching down between them to tug at the button of Yondu’s pants. It popped easily, and he wasted no time digging his fingers in to grasp Yondu’s pulsing cock through his underthings. The material was absolutely  _ sopping  _ under his palm, slick and hot, and Peter wondered for a moment whether the captain had come in his pants. 

No, he discovered as he pushed Yondu’s underwear aside and wrapped his fingers around hot flesh, his cock was lubricating itself. Yondu’s hips shifted, slipping his dick through the tight circle of Peter’s fingers and Peter’s eyes rolled back in his head because holy fucking shit that was unbelievably hot. He let go of Yondu’s length so he could bring his hand up to his face and lick his fingers clean, hips rolling up of their own accord, groaning at the bitter spicy taste of Yondu’s slick. 

Yondu was watching him, he saw through his lowered lashes, blown pupils trained on his lapping tongue, lips parted in a heady pant. Peter  _ moaned _ , low and deep from his chest, slipping two fingers into his mouth and hollowing out his cheeks as he sucked of the remaining liquid and Yondu’s hips bucked forward. 

A second later he was being hauled bodily up, Yondu’s hands grasping his thighs to keep them wrapped around his waist and they were moving backwards. It should have been awkward; Peter was bigger than Yondu, after all, but the captain was stronger than he looked. He didn’t stumble once as he maneuvered them across the room, his arms didn’t shake as he carried all hulking two hundred and twenty pounds of Terran and laid him out in his furs. He wasted no time divesting Peter of his pants, and though Peter could focus on little else than sensations he thought he heard the material tearing as they were yanked down his thighs and off to land in a heap on the floor. The rest of Yondu’s own clothes followed hastily after and then Peter’s body was being covered by five foot ten inches of writhing Centaurian, his dripping cock dragging against Peter’s thigh, one hand grasping his neck, thumb pushing his jaw up. 

Peter reached up and wrapped his hand around Yondu’s neck and pulled until he could catch his lips in a searing kiss. Yondu groaned into his open mouth, slipping his tongue inside and lapping everywhere, a rough exploration of every inch of Peter’s mouth from his teeth to his inner cheeks to his tongue. It was sloppy and wet, rough and unlike any kiss Peter had ever shared. Maybe it was the pollen talking, but he felt like he could feel Yondu’s desperation in the kiss, could feel his need like a physical thing in the press of his lips and the nip of his teeth. 

It was definitely an effect of the pollen when Peter’s legs wrapped once more around Yondu’s waist and he felt the slick blunt head of his cock slipping past the ring of muscle there like it had been professionally loosened. There was no burn, no sting, no feeling of being stretched as he knew there should have been; nothing but the heady all-consuming feeling of being deliciously filled by that scorching heat. Yondu sucked on his tongue as he pushed all the way inside, placing one of his arms behind one of Peter’s legs to make more room of himself. 

“Oh, oh, oh fuck,” Peter moaned when Yondu let go of his tongue. Oh, god, this was all he’d ever wanted, wasn’t it? This feeling of being claimed, of being filled up by this person, by his other half, by his mate. 

_ Mate? _ Peter thought, but before he could further question his weird word choice the pollen took over, pushing doubts to the side to make way for heady all-consuming lust. 

“Beautiful,” Yondu husked, pulling back until all but his tip was free of Peter’s hole and thrusting back in, repeating the motion with a roll of his hips. “So good for me, sweetheart, so fucking perfect. So - ah, fuck! Take it, Pete, such a good boy.” 

Peter keened, tossing his head back into the furs and rolling his hips to meet Yondu’s thrusts. Yondu was making all sorts of noises in between each thrust, growling, moaning, grunting, keening into Peter’s flesh and Peter never would have pegged Yondu for such a vocal lover but he was absolutely here for it. Through the pollen induced haze he spared a thought for the fact that Yondu could probably be doing absolutely anything and Peter would be here for it so long as he didn’t stop what he was doing with his cock. 

His eyes snapped open when Yondu pulled all the way out, moaning at the loss because didn’t Yondu know that he wasn’t done with him yet? Didn’t he know that it wasn’t enough, would never be enough, that he couldn’t take that type of separation right now? Yondu pushed Peter’s legs off of his hips and before Peter knew what was happening he had been flipped onto his stomach and Yondu was lifting his hips into the air and  _ oh _ , okay he could deal with this. 

“Yeah, baby - oh god,” Peter moaned, face pressed into the furs and hips in the air as Yondu thrusted back inside his aching channel. “Take me, just - hnng -  _ harder.” _

Yondu was more than willing to comply with his breathy request, and Peter could do nothing but hold onto the furs underneath him as Yondu grasped his hips and began plowing into him like he was going to die if he didn’t - which, actually he kind of was. He felt Yondu adjust so that he was pushing in from a higher angle, and when he did his cock dragged over that sweet spot inside and Peter all but screamed from the perfection of it. 

“ _ Ah _ , Yondu, I’m gonna - gonna -  _ ah!”  _ Peter moaned as his orgasm overtook him, ripping through his body so hard his vision went fuzzy at the edges, cum spurting onto the furs underneath him as his hips continued to rock with the force of Yondu’s thrusts. 

Yondu didn’t even slow, just rode through Peter’s orgasm at that same bruising pace, gripping Peter’s hips impossibly tighter, groaning out breathy encouragements as Peter finished. “That’s it, sweetheart, come for me. Just like that - so good, boy. Fucking perfect.” 

Peter buried his face in the furs, and though he knew it was fucking impossible he felt his dick swelling once more as Yondu leaned over him to cover his entire back with his heaving chest. Then one of Yondu’s arms wrapped around his chest and he was being pulled up to his knees, legs spread over Yondu’s meaty thighs, one hand going up of it’s own accord to wrap around Yondu’s neck behind him. Yondus ragged breath was ghosting over his ear, sending shivers down his whole body, and he twisted so that he could lock their lips together as Yondu pounded up into him. He wrapped one hand around his own dick, and he was frankly amazed at how hard it was so soon after he’d come, leaking already from the tip. 

“Pete,” Yondu moaned, ripping his mouth away and burying his nose in Peter’s neck. His hips were losing their steady rhythm, and as the unmistakable shudders of orgasm wracked his body he buried his teeth in the junction between Peter’s neck and shoulder, implant singing to life so brightly that Peter had to close his eyes against the light of it. 

The strangest thing happened then, as Peter felt Yondu’s cock pulsing inside of his channel. Suddenly he felt like he was two people, being filled and filling all at once, and as Yondu’s orgasm crashed over him he could feel his own cock buried in slick heat, could feel his own chest pressed against a sculpted muscular back, could feel curly sweat-soaked hair tickling at his bare scalp as he came. 

The feeling was there and gone in an instant, and then Peter was back in his own body, cum dripping over the fist he still had wrapped around his length as Yondu let go of his chest and collapsed backwards. A second later Peter could feel Yondu’s length filling once again inside of him, his own dick - fucking impossibly - sprung to attention again and he promptly forgot all weird out of body experiences in lieu of the heat once again burning through his veins. 

With a feral growl he pulled himself off of Yondu’s length and turned, gripping Yondu behind his knees and pushing up until there were two gloriously smooth blue thighs around his neck. He quickly discovered that Centaurians lubricated from both ends - was that because of the pollen or was it an all the time thing? He made a note to find out later as he pushed his cock inside of Yondu’s waiting hole, relishing the way Yondu keened needily at the intrusion. 

His body was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, the lights from overhead glinting off of it and throwing his bunching muscles into sharp relief as he thrust into Yondu. He grabbed one thigh and turned so that he could suck a dark purple love bite into it, then pushed it to the side so he could lean up and slot his open mouth against Yondu’s, drinking in the way his mate - captain! The way his captain moaned into him, the way his nails raked down his back, the way his hips canted up to meet every roll of Peter’s hips. 

Before he knew it he was coming again, groaning as Yondu followed suit, thick white cum splattering into the hair on his chest. Again he felt that strange sensation of both filling and being filled, experienced two different orgasms at once, and again he forgot the sensation as burning need once again overtook him. 

It was a blur after that, and he frankly lost track of who had fucked whom, how many times they had finished, how many hours had passed. He was nothing but a sex crazed vessel, acting on pure instinct.

                                                                                                                    ----

_ A needy moan as he pulled Yondu’s hips into the air and delved into his sopping hole with his tongue, lapping up Yondu’s slick and his own cum, knowing without being told that sucking intermittently on the ring of muscle would drive Yondu fucking wild. _

_                                                                                                                    ---- _

_ Yondu groaned as he placed one hand lightly at the base of Peter’s throat, and Peter had no idea how Yondu knew just how much pressure to put there to make Peter keen but it was goddamn perfect. He pushed his hips up to meet Yondu’s thrusts, heady and gone, gone, so very fucking gone. _

_                                                                                                                   ---- _

_ The faint crackling of the comm as he lifted Yondu against the wall and took him, and was that Kraglin’s voice? He didn’t know, but he didn’t have long to consider before Yondu’s fist slammed into the device and it shattered with a volley of sparks _ .

                                                                                                                  ----

_ His knees were being scraped raw as Yondu fucked him on the hard metal floor, and it didn’t matter, he didn’t fucking care because Yondu was yanking on his hair in that way he’d always adored and he was coming again, dick pulsing as it tried to eek something out of his incredibly empty balls. _

_                                                                                                                  ---- _

When the fever finally broke they were laying on their sides in Yondu’s now filthy furs, Yondu lazily thrusting into him, and Peter was so exhausted that he could barely move. His body protested adamantly as Yondu came inside him for the last time, as he himself felt his last aching orgasm overtake him. Then his eyes were closed and he drifted inescapably toward unconsciousness with Yondu wrapped tightly around him, his dick softening where it was still buried in Peter’s abused hole. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Smutty, smut smut! Hot damn, Yondu's always got me feeling some type of way. It is unhealthy to be this attracted to a fictional blue man twice my age, guys, help!   
> Let me know what you guys thought!


	4. Chains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty unhappy with how this one turned out, but it's more of a stepping stone for plot than actual plot so I hope it doesn't throw the story off too much! Thanks for your patience, folks, I love ya!  
> Also, I may come back later and change things a bit but I will say something at the beginning of the next chapter so there's no confusion!

The first thing Yondu noticed as he struggled groggily towards consciousness was an overwhelming thirst, mouth so dry it was like he had taken a handful of sand and swished it around in there for a few hours. The second thing he noticed was that his ass _ached_ in a way it hadn’t since that time with the four A'askavarians what felt like a million years ago. In fact, his entire body ached with not just fatigued muscles but bites, scratches, and, he noticed as he cracked his eye open and saw his bicep, hickeys.

The next thing he noticed was that there was a thick arm wrapped securely around his stomach, a long hard body - far too wide and muscular to be Kraglin - pressed against him, and the soft feeling of puffing breath against his neck. Whoever this person was had his legs tangled securely with Yondu’s, and while this wasn’t the first time Yondu had woken up with a stranger in his bed with no memory of how it had happened it _was_ the first time he didn’t remember getting to the forgetting part. He didn’t feel a hangover, either, which was slightly alarming because honestly at his age there was no physical possibility of getting blackout drunk enough to forget such a clearly thorough fucking without having a splitting headache the next day.

As the thought trickled through his groggy mind the body behind him seemed to shift, the arm gripping him tighter, and he became aware of something else, too, pressing insistently against the crease of his cheeks. As the man began to wake, his hips began to shift, and Yondu was a split second from saying fuck his memory and turning around to have a go he’d be able to remember when an achingly familiar voice, hoarse and raspy from whatever they’d done the night before but still the same, washed over him.

“Well, that was intense,” Peter said, hips still rolling, and Yondu’s entire body went stiff - even, to his utter frustration, his raw aching cock, which leapt to attention at the soft deep timbre of Peter’s voice like Pavlov’s fucking dog. The Terran either didn’t notice or didn’t care about his reaction, and Yondu felt that too-hot hand skating down his chest, fingertips running through the sparse hair at his navel. “I changed my mind about that flower. We shouldn’t destroy it, we should harvest the shit out of that pollen and have a repeat performance.”

There were two separate parts to Yondu’s mind at that moment, two seemingly different entities warring with each other inside his consciousness. The first one was clearly the more logical of the two, and that one was ten seconds from beating the ever loving shit out of Quill - for what, he wasn’t sure, but it was either the fact that he had dared to be in his bed at all or the fact that Yondu was still fucking livid about his betrayal all those months ago. That part of himself was familiar; he’d spent the better part of the past twenty years constantly wanting to kick the shit out of that infuriating asshole.

The second part of Yondu’s mind was the most alarming, because it was the part that seemed to have the most control over him at the moment. That part was feeling warm and hazy, pleasure-filled, suffusing him with the overwhelming urge to all but purr as he rolled his hips languidly back to meet Peter’s lazy thrusting. It wasn’t that he’d never thought about Quill as a potential bedmate before (he wasn’t fucking _blind,_ after all, he knew Quill was one fine piece of Terran ass), but because he’d _never_ , not once, felt like all his pieces fit with someone else’s before. Even Kraglin, who he’d been fucking for _years_ was always too bony, too scratchy, too _something,_ and Yondu had been fine with that because it was those imperfections that kept him from getting attached to anyone.

Peter, though, Peter’s body slotted perfectly behind his, his hands were sure as they hit all of Yondu’s favorite places with just the right amount of pressure, and that was unsettling enough to set Yondu on edge. Too bad his body was having other thoughts, too bad he seemed physically incapable of moving away from the warm mass of muscle against him. He felt Quill lean forward to press soft nipping kisses along the stubble of his jaw, felt him suck his earlobe into his mouth, teeth clicking on the golden hoop there. He stretched his neck out obediently as Peter’s questing lips and teeth drew further down, down, licking and sucking and kissing until he reached the spot Yondu hadn’t known until that moment he’d been desperate to have touched.

He actually _gasped_ as Peter’s teeth sunk into the sensitive junction between his neck and shoulder, arching up into the hand that had wrapped around his sopping prick and holy fucking shit had that always been an erogenous zone? He felt Peter’s cock slipping between his cheeks, felt more than heard Peter groan against that fucking perfect spot, and pushed his hips back to meet his mate’s.

As the word _mate_ slithered through his mind’s eye he was assaulted with a thousand and one images, slamming into him with a force that left him reeling.

 _Peter, hand to Yondu’s neck, growling at him to_ submit _._

_Yondu, keening as he pushed into Peter’s perfect waiting hole, as he soothed the insistent fever burning through his body._

_Latching onto the part of Peter where his scent was strongest and sinking his teeth in, coppery Terran blood coating his tongue and cooling the fire within him to make way for nothing but aching need to_ claim, _to_ own.

 _Looking down at his own writhing back as he thrusted into a sopping loose channel, not sparing a thought for how fucking weird that was because this was_ perfect, _this joining of the minds was meant to happen, was completing him in a way he’d never known he needed completion._

 _Peter latching onto that same spot on Yondu and this was so_ right, _they owned each other now, they were mated, Peter was_ his, his, his.

With a force of will Yondu hadn’t known he possessed, he pulled his elbow up and shoved it back to hit Peter in his side. Peter shouted and his arm around Yondu’s waist loosened and then Yondu was scrambling to his feet, grasping for his blaster, ignoring the way his cock was still leaking and hard from Peter’s earlier ministrations.

“What the _fuck_ did you do to me, boy?” he growled, his weapon slotting into his hand and whirring to life as he aimed it just over Peter’s shoulder. He could _not,_ no matter how hard he tried, aim it directly at the boy, couldn’t even make his arm twitch in that direction and _what the actual fuck was going on here?_

Peter rubbed at his side and glared at the captain, but ultimately leveled him with a leering smirk as he said, “what _didn’t_ I do to you, that would be a better question. That’s a significantly shorter list right now, I’m sure.” The fucked up part, the part that really sent Yondu’s head spinning, was that Peter didn’t even look the least bit threatened. Yondu had aimed weapons at him so many times it was bordering of laughable, and every single time Peter had shrunk back as if he honestly thought that would be the time Yondu finally lost all patience and took him out.

Now, though? Now Peter was spreading that long perfect body out on the cum stained furs, stretching his arms luxuriously over his head and shifting his hips forward so Yondu couldn’t help but dart his gaze down to his jutting cock. His eyes when they locked with Yondu’s were soft and smiling in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before and this was so fucking _wrong._

“I ain’t jokin’, boy, tell me what the fuck is going on before I whistle you through!” Yondu snarled, and he was able to inch the barrel of his blaster just that tiny bit downward so that if he shot it he could maybe graze a shoulder.

Peter sat up, scratching at his chest hair absentmindedly and Yondu had to fight the way his fingers itched to run through that soft curly patch he’d spent days luxuriating over. “Is this like round two of the pollen or something?” Peter asked, smile never slipping. “Because I gotta tell you, buddy, as hot as the past three days have been I really don’t think I can beat you again in this state.”

“What pollen? What’re you talking about, Pete?” he asked, frustrated when his words had less bite than he’d intended. What was _wrong_ with him?

Peter’s smile did slip then, and something inside of Yondu ached at the waning happiness of his mate. He quashed whatever that something was with a frustrated growl and a shake of his head, staunchly reminding himself that he didn’t give two shits about whether Peter was _happy_ , for fuck’s sake.

“You don’t remember anything?” the boy asked, cocking his head to the side. “The collector’s place, the flower?” He pointed behind Yondu to his busted cabinet, and there in the shattered glass was that glowing plant they’d run across in the ruin’s of the collector’s building, though it wasn’t glowing anymore.

“Whassat got to do with anything?” Yondu asked when he’d turned back to the Terran. Peter had slid out of bed and was searching around on the floor for his clothes. Yondu tried not to watch his ass as he bent down and picked up his half ruined pants, but honestly he’d of been hard pressed to turn away from such a glorious sight _before_ whatever the fuck was going on had started. Now? Now he wanted almost nothing more than to bend the Terran over and sink his teeth into those meaty perfect globes. He almost groaned as Peter slipped his tight red pants over his hips and covered up the miles of flesh.

“That flower is the mating flower from Centauri IV,” Peter said, and he wasn’t looking when Yondu’s entire body froze up but he seemed to notice all the same and stopped in his task of looking for more clothes to focus his gaze on the captain. “What? You don’t recognize it?”

What did he say to that? ‘No, Pete, I don’t fucking recognize it. I wouldn’t recognize shit from my home planet because my goddamn parents sold me off when I was a fucking baby.’ Right, that was something he’d never told a single soul since Stakar had saved his sorry ass as a teenage Kree slave. He sure as fuck wasn’t about to start spouting off about it then.

“What does it do?” he asked instead.

Peter was frowning, rubbing at his temple as if he had a headache. “You don’t - ow, what the fuck?” he hissed, bending at the waist and clutching his head in both hands. Whatever easy mood he’d been in was changing as he dealt with whatever was going on in his head, and Yondu took an instinctive step forward, gun lowering of its own accord.

“What do you _mean_ your parents sold you off when you were a baby?” Peter asked, still rubbing at his temple but even that weird foreign protective part of Yondu vying for attention didn't care because his goddamn heart had all but stopped.

“What did you just say to me, boy?” he hissed from between clenched teeth. “How do you fuckin’ know that?” _No one_ knew that. Yondu kept his few vulnerabilities clutched tightly to his tattoo and scar covered chest, and not even Kraglin - whom he admittedly trusted more than any man alive - didn’t know about his secret shame.

Peter glanced up at him, clearly bewildered. “Dude, what’s going on with you?” he asked, straightening up but still rubbing at his temple. “You _literally_ just told me.”

“I didn’t say shit to you, boy,” Yondu snapped, and there was a thought forming in the back of his mind he really didn’t want to acknowledge, the pieces of this shit storm fitting together whether he wanted to admit it or not because Peter had undeniably said _mating flower;_ whether or not Yondu knew anything about his home planet didn’t matter, because the meaning of that combined with this fucking ridiculous turn of events was glaringly, terrifyingly, disgustingly obvious.

“Yeah you did,” Peter said, finally dropping his hand from his head. Yondu was momentarily distracted by the steady rise and fall of his sweat glistening chest, and had to tear his eyes away with a force of will he’d of been proud of in any other situation. “You said, and I quote, ‘I wouldn’t recognize shit from my home planet because my goddamn parents sold me off when I was a fucking baby.’”

Yondu tried to raise his blaster against Peter once more in his ire, and when his arm refused to budge he dropped it to the floor in favor of launching himself at the stupid fucking idiot - because god fucking dammit that confirmed his terrible sneaking suspicion like a punch to the gut -, who was clearly not expecting the sudden attack because he yelped as he was shoved back into the wall behind him. The sane part of Yondu took a savage satisfaction in the way Peter’s head bounced off the wall with a loud _clank_ , while the not-so-sane part keened at his mate in pain. He pinned Peter to the wall with a forearm to his throat, bringing their faces so close together he could feel the boy’s hot breath ghosting across his lips. “You. Fucking. Idiot!”

“ _What?”_ Peter asked, and Yondu could actually _feel_ his aching bewilderment, could feel the other man’s confusion and bitter disappointment at the back of his throat like a taste. “What the _fuck_ , man? Why do you always gotta ruin everything like this? For fuck’s sake!”

“You fucking jackass!” Yondu hissed, shoving his arm into Peter’s throat with enough pressure to hurt but not enough to cut off his air supply. “You - god fucking dammit, Quill, do you even know what you did?”

He tasted anger, then, tangy and undeniable and _strong_ , so strong it was cloying on the back of his tongue, all the worse for the fact that he knew it wasn’t his own goddamn emotion. Peter, whatever he was, was not weak and was not one to take anything lying down. It came as no surprise when he felt a pair of large hot hands press against his chest and _shove_ , sending him stumbling back and loosening the grip he’d had on his throat. “I _saved you_ , you ungrateful fuck! You - “ He interrupted himself with a growl, taking a firm step forward and Yondu nearly gave ground, stopping himself at the last second from taking a hasty step backwards in the face of Peter’s ire because he did not fucking yield to any man, let alone this fucking upstart Terran who had been a thorn in his side for literally half his life.

Where they ended up instead was with Peter looming angrily over him, half a head taller at least, Yondu’s still naked body brushing up against Peter’s leather pants. “You were going to _die,_ you idiot,” Peter hissed, eyes flashing. “If I hadn’t gotten here when I did you would have burned up from the flower’s fever and _died_. I don’t expect gratitude from you, of all fucking people, but the least you could do is not bite my goddamn head off.”

The taste of Peter’s anger slipped down his throat and pooled in his belly, making way for his own emotions and he didn’t know what that really meant, but he guessed that he could only feel something Peter was feeling when it was particularly strong. His voice when it left him was low and raspy, dangerous. “Get the fuck out, boy.”

Whatever Peter had been expecting, it apparently hadn’t been that. He gaped at him, confusion morphing to anger so quickly it was almost comical. Yondu didn’t care, though, as Peter snarled in frustration and knelt down to pick up the first shirt he found on the floor, slipping it over his head with a little more force behind the motion than necessary. He needed Peter _gone,_ needed to put some distance between them before he gave into that insistent voice telling him he needed to fix whatever he’d done to the boy.

The door, when Peter reached it, wouldn’t budge. Yondu vaguely recalled Kraglin’s voice coming through the comm on the wall and his anger at the interruption as he smashed the box to smithereens. As Peter kicked at the door with an unlaced boot Yondu picked his way across the bits of shattered glass and splintered furniture to his metal desk and opened one of the drawers, pulling out the handheld comm and clicking it on.

“Krags,” he said, turning his back on Peter who had whirled around at his voice. “You there?”

“Cap! Thank fuck,” Kraglin breathed, and Yondu could hear the crackling of leather as his first mate no doubt slumped into his chair. “Is Quill - er - alive?”

“Yeah, he’s alive,” Yondu sighed. “Unfortunately. Reset the manual override on the door so he can get the fuck off my ship.”

There was a moment of crackling silence, and Yondu knew Kraglin was probably trying to decide whether or not to say what he was thinking. “Alright, Cap.” He heard the sound of fingers tapping on the other end of the line and within seconds the door to his room was swishing open and Peter’s boots were stomping off down the hall. “Done.”

“Get that idjit off my ship, Obfonteri,” Yondu snapped as his door swished shut. He slumped back onto the bed and fell into the filthy furs, nostrils flaring at the unmistakable scent of Peter lingering in them. Hell, he was gonna have to fucking burn his whole damn bed to get rid of the smell.

“Cap’n, you sure? He’s - uh - I mean I know we’re still mad about the orb and whatever but he did kinda come save our asses, you know? I thought maybe - “

“You questioning yer captain, Kraglin?” Yondu snarled into the comm.

He heard Peter’s angry stomping boots on Kraglin’s end, signaling his arrival on the bridge and Kraglin’s barely audible groan. “No, Cap.” Peter was ranting in the background, and the comms weren’t sensitive enough to pick it all up but he caught words like _jackass_ and _ungrateful fuck_ and _goddamn aliens_ so it wasn’t hard for him to imagine what the tirade was about. “He’s - shut _up_ Pete, Christ - his crew fucked off to somewhere after they dropped him off but that freaky rodent called me this morning to check in. I’ll find out where they’re at and have ‘em come pick him up.”

“No! I want him gone in ten minutes, Krags, you hear me?” Yondu snarled, entirely aware that he was being fucking unreasonable but he was allowed to goddamnit. “Get yer scrawny ass on yer M-Ship and take him to the nearest planet or space station or fucking asteroid belt - I don’t care, just get him gone, y’hear me?”

“ _Fuck you!”_ Peter yelled, tinny voice coming through loud and clear.

“Shut _up,_ Pete!” Kraglin hissed, and Yondu heard the sound of flesh slapping flesh. He wasn’t sure what pissed him off more: the way his hackles raised when someone had clearly hit his mat - Terran, or the way Peter started spouting off another string of obscenities in the background. “Gotcha, Cap, consider it done.”

The line went dead, cutting off Peter’s voice and Yondu dropped his comm and draped a hickey-covered arm over his eyes.

_Mated._

Apparently he was one of the unlucky fucks from a species who goddamn _mated_ , like fucking animals. He’d had no goddamn clue, but now it was entirely undeniable. If he hadn’t felt it in the way he could taste what Peter was feeling, if he hadn’t known from the way his thought had filtered into Peter’s own mind (that explained the groaning and head-clutching, actually, because he was sure Terrans didn’t have any kind of inherent telepathic abilities. It must have _hurt_ to have someone else’s thoughts tossed at him), then he would know it from the ache solidifying in his chest. He knew without having to see it that Peter and Kraglin had already made it to a ship and were taking off, because he could literally _feel_ the distance growing between he and the Terran, tugging at his insides like a heavy clinking chain.

He closed his eyes and rolled over into the furs, burying his nose in them and inhaling in a moment of private weakness, and hoped to fuck that whatever - ugh - _bond_ had formed between them would wither without attention or else snap at the distance growing between them. It _had to_ go away, right? There was no fucking way it could stretch across the entire goddamn galaxy.

Yondu was an expert at running away - from authorities, from slavers, from people he’d tried to kill, from his own goddamn slivers of rare emotions - and as the minutes settled into hours and he kept feeling the distance growing between them without any change in the invisible line tethering them together he got the sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to run from this one. He drifted into an uneasy sleep to half-waking dreams of being strangled by coppery glowing chains, tossing and turning well into the ship’s morning before he finally fully fell into fitful slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you guys think? Where do you see this story going?  
> You know I adore hearing from you all!! <3


	5. Talking to Myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait on this. As far as this fic goes, my only excuse is that I started watching the Walking Dead (I know I'm super behind on the times, guys, give me a break lol) and I am completely and totally obsessed. Like... that's almost all I've been doing with my days. That's why this one got the back burner.   
> As for Weight of the World... I'm just stuck, honestly, and I really want to do that one justice because that series is my baby. I don't wanna just punch something out and leave it at that, because I want it to be not only worth the weight but worthy of the world I build for the story. So yeah. I'm working on it, and I'm super sorry for those of you who have been waiting for it!

“What’s his goddamn problem?” Peter snapped for what felt like the hundredth time, and he was back to pacing again, back and forth between the two rows of seats in Kraglin’s M-Ship like a caged animal. There was still a little ache in his temples, a pressure that didn’t really  _ hurt  _ anymore but was still present enough to keep drawing his attention to it. “I mean, okay, I get that he’s still mad about the orb but shouldn’t saving his life, like, cancel it out or something?” 

 

Kraglin quietly banged his head against the controls a few times before straightening up with a fortifying sigh. “For the love of fuck, Pete, can you keep your trap shut for  _ ten seconds? _ And sit the fuck down! Yer pacing’s gonna make me fly us right into an asteroid field to put me outta my goddamn misery.” 

Peter huffed and fell back into the copilot seat, dropping his head back to bang against the headrest. He’d showered and eaten some protein rations while Kraglin flew, but even though he’d scalded himself and scrubbed his skin pink he could still swear he smelled like the captain. It  _ possibly  _ had something to do with the shirt he’d picked up from Yondu’s floor, which was a black v-neck t-shirt that said  _ Surrender the Booty  _ in blood red font across the chest. It wasn’t his own. He remembered giving it to Yondu as a joke when he was sixteen or seventeen, and it wasn’t until he’d looked at himself in the mirror that he’d realized the captain had kept it at all. It smelled like sweat and engine grease, a combination Peter had never found particularly attractive before but which he couldn't stop trying to get the scent of now. 

Something really fucking weird was going on here. 

“Hey, Krags, where are you taking me anyway?” he asked when the silence had stretched on too long (a minute, tops, but Peter wasn't good at keeping quiet on even his best days). 

“Yer crew told me they was gonna meet you at the Beta Fourteen space station,” Kraglin replied, tapping something into his nav panel. “Said they’d be there in about forty-eight standard hours.” 

Peter sat up straight as an idea occurred to him, turning to Kraglin with a grin. “Hey, Beta Fourteen is one jump away from Fara. Can you drop me off there instead?” 

Kraglin groaned, and Peter had no doubt he was about to protest. He also had no doubt that he was going to cave to Peter’s will. “Cap said to drop you off at the closest space station, Pete.”

“Yondu’s asleep,” Peter said absently, reaching over and pulling the nav panel over so he could input the new coordinates. “He won’t notice if you’re gone an extra hour.” 

The burn of Kraglin’s eyes in the side of his face was unmistakable, and he turned to find the man in question staring at him with knitted brows. He raised of his own thick eyebrows at the other man in response. “What? What’re you looking at me like that for?” 

“Pete, how would you know the Cap’n was asleep right now?” Kraglin asked, slowly, as if he were talking to a small child. He clicked the controls to auto pilot and swiveled his chair to face the Terran, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “What the hell happened? Cap was mighty pissed, and now, what, you know what he’s doing from parsecs away?” 

Peter scoffed, feigning bravado, but inside he had turned to ice because, fuck, how  _ did  _ he know that? “Chill, man. I just meant he’s  _ probably  _ sleeping, you know, after the pounding I gave him for three days straight he probably needed it.” Peter leered, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Kraglin until the other man snorted and turned back to the controls. He stood with a groan, stretching his arms lazily towards the ceiling and trying not to wince at the feeling of his entire body protesting his recent activities. “Anyway, I gotta see a man about a dog. Be back in a few.” 

When the door to the refresher swished shut behind him he let out a shaky sigh and leaned with his hands at the sides of the sink. What the fuck was going on here? He  _ did  _ know, with absolute certainty, that Yondu was currently asleep in his own room. Well,  _ trying to sleep  _ was probably a better way to put it. Whatever was going on, Yondu was restless. Peter could feel it there in the back of his mind, and he had no idea how the fuck that was happening. 

“Get outta my head, goddamnit!” he hissed to his reflection in the mirror, but every time he tried to shake off whatever was happening inside his head that ache grew worse. Finally he growled at himself and turned on the tap to splash his scruffy face with cool water. It calmed him, sort of, soothed the ache but didn’t completely get rid of it. 

\------

Three hours later Kraglin’s ship docked in Fara’s port, and he and Peter stood awkwardly at the top of the ramp, not looking at one another. Peter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. Once his adrenaline had settled and he’d stopped bitching about Yondu, a weight had settled between them; a thick tension which Peter definitely knew the source of. They’d never talked about the shit with the orb, and while Peter would never pretend to feel  _ guilty  _ about what he’d done - how could he feel guilty, really, when what he’d done had ended up saving the entire galaxy? - he did feel some remorse for betraying Kraglin. The man had pretty much raised him after all, maybe not in a parental capacity but as the galaxy’s worst, yet fiercely loyal, older brother. 

“Krags,” he said at length, reaching out and clasping the smaller man on one scrawny shoulder. “Look, about that shit with the orb…” He trailed off, unsure what to say, really, because Ravagers just didn’t do apologies and sentimental. 

Kraglin sighed and punched him in the shoulder none-too-gently with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, well, we all knew you was a stupid jackass. Ya’d been restless for years; even I could see that, and we wasn’t really all that surprised when ya took off. You made a shit Ravager anyway, Pete, it’s prolly best you up and lit out.” He shrugged off Peter’s hand and crossed his arms. “Cap may never let it go, but way I see it is you saved his ass by doin’ what ya did and I guess we can call it even now coz of it.” 

Kraglin held out his hand, and Peter’s grin threatened to split his face in half. A tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding on to since the incident bled out of his broad shoulders. “You fuckin’ softie,” he laughed, grasping Kraglin’s hand and yanking him in for a bone crushing hug. Kraglin stiffened, as always, but also allowed Peter just a few seconds of contact - also as always - before shoving him off with a grunt. Peter’s heart swelled at the familiarity of it all, and he punched Kraglin’s shoulder good-naturedly. 

“Fuckin’ Terrans and that huggin’ bullshit,” Kraglin grunted, sniffing as he swiped his thumb across his nose. “Now git, kid. I gotta get back to the Cap before he wakes up and tans my hide fer disobeyin’ him.” 

Peter tossed him a jaunty Terran salute and scampered down the ramp, not looking back as he made his way through the throngs of people in the port. If he remembered correctly - which, he’d been pretty fucking plastered at the time so it was entirely possible he didn’t - the bar he’d picked Troy up in was only a block or two over from the planet’s port. The guy had seemed awful knowledgeable about this mating flower bullshit, and since Peter had a couple days to kill anyway he figured he might as well track him down and see if he couldn’t get some answers Yondu was either incapable of or unwilling to give to him. 

As he reached the near-empty bar - it was only mid-morning on Fara, so the only patrons were the old bar flies, the ones who all seemed to have the same haggard defeated look no matter what corner of the galaxy he found them in - it occurred to him that he should really make it a practice to get the numbers of the people he picked up. It would have made it so much easier if he could just call the other man up instead of tracking him down like this. 

“Hey,” he said as he approached the bar and leaned his elbows up against it. The bartender looked up from the glass she’d been cleaning and set it down on the stack at her elbow. 

“What can I do for you, hun?” she asked, tossing her long grey hair over her shoulder and smiling at him. She was older, maybe mid-fifties, pretty in a way that suggested when she was younger she’d been absolutely devastating.  

Peter grinned in that lopsided way that never failed the charm the pants off of people and leaned forward on his elbows. “I was just wonderin’ if you could point me in the direction of the university?” 

She leaned her own elbows on the bar and propped her head in her hand. “Why? You lookin’ to pick up some young thing?” 

“Nah,” he said. “Met a guy in here the other day, real pretty man with orange skin and legs for days. Anyway, we didn’t exchange numbers and I wanted to see him again. Thought I’d track him down and see if I couldn’t get a date.” 

It was her turn to grin, and she leaned back to slap her hand on the bar. “I’d bet all my tips for the day that you’re talkin’ about Troy Anderson. You are, aren’t you?” 

Peter blinked and sat up. “Well, yeah, actually. How’d you know?” 

She laughed, propping one hand on her hip. “You’re not the first guy to come lookin’ for Troy after he spends a night with ‘em. That boy’s been coming in here picking people up for years. One of my best customers, really, always buys all their drinks and tips real well.” 

“Do you know where I can find him?” Peter asked, his perspective of the minx he’d had in his bed shifting. He’d thought he was the one in charge of their tete-a-tete, but now he was wondering if he’d been played. That didn’t happen often, and honestly it was a little intriguing. 

“He’s in classes every day until around four. Head down the street you came in on, about a mile down the road, and take a left. You’ll see the university from there,” she said, picking up another glass and setting to wiping it down. “He’s in the Anthro department. If I remember right from my days there it’ll be the third building from the left of the main hall.” 

Peter nodded his thanks and turned away, ignoring her call of, “good luck, sweetheart” as he made his way out into the sunlight. 

\------

The building in question wasn’t difficult to find, a sprawling one story red brick building with near empty halls. Class must be in session, then.

Peter hadn’t set foot in a school since he was nine years old, and truth be told it made him a little uncomfortable, a little insecure about his complete and utter lack of formal education. Kraglin had taught him to read, and Yondu had taught him everything he ever needed to know about star charts, mechanics, weapons, and whatever calculations needed to get their job done, but it wasn’t really the same. 

He wondered, suddenly, if he would have ended up in a place like this one day if his life hadn’t gone so spectacularly pear shaped the day his mom found out her condition. When he was a kid, he’d dreamed of working for Nasa, of being an astronaut. Is that what he would have gone to school for? 

Would he have found a nice girl, bought a house on a sleepy Missouri street and settled down with a couple of kids and a dog? He shook off the pang he felt for a life he’d never have, frowning. He loved his life, loved the stars and open space and the freedom to do what he wanted, when he wanted. He’d spent his entire life looking forward, never back, so why was he suddenly thinking about what could have been? Why was it that all of a sudden he couldn’t help the way he missed the days spent doing nothing but lazing around in the thick heat of a Missouri summer listening to music with his mom while his grandpa grilled up steaks and hamburgers? 

His musings ground to a halt as he peered into another classroom and his eyes caught on a flash of orange and white. There he was, standing at the front of the classroom in a pair of black slacks, a white button up shirt and a black vest. Peter raised his eyebrow and hummed. He was positive Troy had said he was a student, but he was unmistakably giving a lecture at the front of the room. The bell to dismiss class rang and as the students stood and started shuffling out of the room Peter slipped in and made his way to the front, noting the way students skirted around him, eyes trailing up and down his body. He supposed he probably looked pretty out of place, actually, with his blasters strapped to his thighs and his long red trench coat bearing the Ravager crest. 

Troy was looking at the massive holo screen at the front of the class, and Peter took the opportunity to slip back to sit on the desk, legs slightly spread. “Thought you said you were a student,” he said once he’d settled. 

Troy turned to him with a grin, tucking a strand of hair that had escaped from his high bun back behind his ear. “Peter Quill. Never thought I’d see  _ you  _ again.” 

“Yeah, well, I got a bone to pick with you, actually,” Peter quipped, still half smiling despite himself. “And don’t avoid the question. You told me you were a student.” 

“Didn’t hear you ask a question, actually, more like a statement if you ask me.” He leaned against the holo display behind him, crossing his forearms in front of his chest and raising one eyebrow. “Anyway, I  _ am  _ a student. Grad students sometimes teach the lower level classes in their field. That’s not what you came to talk about, though. You want to talk about the mating flower.” 

Peter’s attention was abruptly focused on that ache in his head, and he knew somehow that Yondu had woken up. With a pang, he realized that he wanted to be there with him, at that moment, and he had to physically stop himself from jumping up and stealing someone’s ship to get back to the captain. He grit his teeth and pulled away from the weird foreign presence in his head, resisting the urge to rub at his temple as it throbbed painfully. What the actual fuck was going on?

“How’d you guess?” he asked, drawing his attention back to the situation at hand.

Troy hummed, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “I don’t have another class to teach today. Why don’t we go get some lunch and we’ll talk about it?”

Peter’s focus was once again brought back to that ache in his head, and he knew somehow that Yondu was  _ pissed _ . He had an image in his head of the captain leaning against the sink and splashing water on his face, of him snarling at his haggard reflection in the mirror. Peter hissed and pulled himself back to the man in front of him once again, to the empty classroom and the feeling of the wooden desk under his thighs. 

“Or we could, you know, head back to your place?” he said, and suddenly he realized that he wanted nothing more than to wash the smell of Yondu off of him by burying himself in someone else because whatever was going on in his head was making him feel claustrophobic and flighty. 

His thoughts were all sorts of fucked up, thinking about college and  _ kids,  _ about settling down and since when could he even entertain a thought about being in one place for more than a few days? He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he didn’t feel like  _ himself _ , and coupled with that infuriating, incessant ache it was making him feel suddenly overwhelmingly trapped. When Peter Quill was trapped, he  _ ran _ , fast and hard in the other direction. 

He hopped down from the desk and sauntered over to the other man, placing one hand on the board by his head and trailing the other down his chest. “Always wanted to be fucked by a teacher, you know, schoolboy fantasies and all that.” 

Troy’s pupils expanded and he grinned at him, toothy and cheeky. “You were already fucked by a teacher, Peter.” 

Peter chuckled and leaned closer, his wandering hand trailing down to grasp one of the other man’s belt-loops. He hadn’t been sure until that moment that he was going to be able to get it up at all after his three day fuck fest, but as his dick stirred and began to take interest he chided himself for underestimating his own stamina. “Any way you can turn that empathy thing off?” he asked, because while he definitely wanted to get into this guy’s pants he also didn’t like the idea of someone knowing what was going on in his head like that. There was enough shit going on in there already; he didn’t need someone else mucking about. 

“If you want,” Troy purred, and Peter grinned as one large orange hand buried itself in his jacket and tugged. “Though it does come in handy in the bedroom, you know. Helps me know what you like, like how it drove you wild when I pulled your hair, or how you liked it when I sat on your face.” 

He was definitely interested now, and he pressed his growing erection into the other man’s hips with a filthy leer. “How far’s your place?” 

“It’s not far, but my office is closer,” Troy said, smirking as Peter pushed his thighs apart and inserted one of his own between them. 

He wasn’t lying. One door over from the classroom and Peter was pressing the other man against the wall, trailing nipping kisses down his jaw, grinding their hips together. His wandering mouth moved down the column of his throat, inhaling as he sucked and licked his way around. Troy smelled fresh, like soap and lemongrass, and Peter tried to shake off the feeling of  _ wrong  _ at the scent, tried to remind himself that sweat and engine grease wasn’t an attractive combination. He hastened his pace as if in protest of it, hiking the other man’s shirt up and running his fingers down his rough stomach, panting. 

Troy wasn’t idle, and before Peter knew it his shirt was gone and he was being pushed back into the desk taking up most of the room. “Sit,” Troy urged, and Peter complied while the other man pulled his vest and shirt over his head, revealing miles and miles of muscles and orange skin. 

Peter grunted as Troy settled between his legs, grabbing onto the globes of his ass. He felt a spike of pain at his temple and suddenly he knew that Yondu was absolutely  _ livid  _ for some reason. With a growl, he shook off the feeling and brought himself back to the present, reaching out to undo the buttons on Troy’s pants, relishing the way the other man’s breaths were coming in panting gasps. 

Long, dexterous fingers flipped the button on his own pants, and before the fly was even completely down there were rough, finely scaled fingers wrapping around his leaking cock and he  _ moaned _ , pushing his hips forward for more. Troy chuckled and used his other hand to yank Peter’s hair until their lips crashed together, tongues battling for dominance. 

It was when Troy’s searching lips found Yondu’s bite mark that a foreign voice filled his mind. 

_‘What the_ ** _fuck_** _are you doing, Quill?’_

Peter gasped, pulling back from Troy’s mouth with a cry and grasping his head in both hands at the agonizing shooting pain lancing through his skull at the sound of the captain’s voice. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hissed, clenching his eyes shut and choking out another little gasp. 

“Peter?” Troy asked, pulling back and grabbing onto Peter’s wrists. “Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?” 

_ ‘Where the hell are you, boy? I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you,’  _ Yondu’s voice hissed in his mind, the deep raspy southern drawl filling every corner of his head with agonizing pain. 

“I don’t - fuck! What the  _ fuck _ ?” Peter groaned, clasping his hands over his ears as if that could ease the pain. “Yondu, what the fuck are you doing to me?” 

“Oh, gods, Peter!” Troy groaned. “You  _ idiot _ . You mated with him, didn’t you?” 

Peter’s body folded in on itself, eyes screwed shut, head clutched between his hands. “I don’t - ugh - it fucking  _ hurts,  _ man, what’s going on?” 

“Alright, alright,” Troy soothed, prying Peter’s hands away from his head with a strength Peter would have been surprised at in any other circumstances. “Just hold on. I can help.” 

Peter felt the cool press of Troy’s fingertips at his temples, and then the pain felt like it was being washed away, pushed back into that aching place at the back of his mind until he felt like he could breathe again. He groaned and leaned forward to press his forehead to the other man’s chest, letting out a shaky sigh of relief. 

“The fuck was  _ that _ ?” he asked when he felt like he could move again, when he was sure that his head wasn’t being cleaved in two. He sat up and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, and suddenly he felt absolutely wrecked, like he’d spent the last hour getting the shit beat out of him. 

“I thought for sure that you didn’t - I mean why the hell would you be here if you’d actually done it? Fuck, why didn’t you  _ tell me _ you went through with it?” Troy asked, tucking himself back into his pants and zipping them up. “And what the fuck are you doing  _ here _ , with me, when you’re this freshly mated? Are you  _ crazy?  _ You’re damn lucky I’m an empath, man, you could have been seriously hurt if I hadn’t locked the connection down.” 

“What does that even  _ mean,  _ mated? What, like a goddamn animal?” Peter asked, and he knew he should be buttoning up his own pants but he felt so incredibly drained that he honestly couldn’t be bothered at the moment. 

When he glanced up he saw that the other man was looking at him like he was the galaxy’s biggest fucking idiot and he bristled. “Don’t look at me like that. I have no idea what the hell is happening here!” 

Troy pulled his hair out of its tie and let it fall to pool around his shoulders before plopping down into the desk chair with a put-upon sigh. “Tell me what happened between you and the Centaurian.” 

Peter leaned back on his hands with a huff. “I went, we fought, I got hit with that stupid pollen, and then we fucked for three days. When we woke up he kicked me out. That’s it.” 

The other man nudged one of Peter’s thighs out of the way so he could open a drawer on the desk and pull out a holopad. “What else?” 

“Nothing,” Peter said, pushing the drawer shut with his leg. “Nothing else. I came here looking for you after that.” 

“That’s a load of bullshit,” Troy said, and even though he didn’t glance up from whatever he was doing on his pad Peter could see his eyes roll. “Come on, tell me what’s going on or I can’t help you. That  _ is  _ what you came here for, right? For help?” 

Peter sighed and finally buttoned up his pants. “It’s just… I dunno. I feel  _ weird _ , alright?” 

Troy hummed, still flicking through something on his pad. “Weird how?” 

“There’s this kind of constant ache in my head, and my  _ thoughts _ , man, it’s so freaky.” He scrubbed at his face and sighed. “I haven’t thought about home in  _ years,  _ at least not wanting to  _ go there _ , but when I was walking around I was actually thinking about settling down, about being domestic and shit. You don’t know me, I guess, but that’s just… that’s not like me at all. And I can’t stop thinking about Yondu. I think about how he smells, and about how he looked under me, and about what his hands felt like on me.” 

“What happened with your head just now?”

“I swear it was like I could  _ hear him _ , you know? He was mad, and I felt like he was right here in this room with us,” Peter said, and now that he’d started talking it was becoming easier. “I dunno what’s going on there, but it felt like my brain was being ripped in half.” 

Troy looked up then, eyes troubled. “You have no idea what you got yourself into, do you?” 

Peter tossed up his hands, agitated. “Fucking  _ obviously! _ Why don’t you fill me in, huh? Because I’ve had a real fuckin’ weird week, man, and I’m about ready to freak the fuck out here!” 

“When you partook in the ceremony with the Centaurian, you  _ mated  _ with him,” Troy said, handing Peter his holopad.

Peter glanced down at it, noting that the text on the screen was from that same diary entry he’d found before. “Yeah, I read this already. The flower jump starts the mating drive, they fight, they fuck, the end. That doesn’t explain shit.” 

Troy groaned and it was his turn to rub at his temple. “You didn’t read the whole thing, did you?” 

“What does it matter?” Peter snapped, defensive. “I get the gist of it!” 

“No, you idiot!” Troy snapped, snatching the pad back. “Because if you would have read further you would have  _ known _ that once you mate to a Centaurian a connection between your minds opens. You would have  _ known  _ that once the ceremony is finished you need to spend time together to cultivate the bond. You would have  _ known  _ that coming here and doing what we just did was going to cause your mate excruciating pain!” 

“What?” Peter asked, dumbstruck, and okay that wasn’t very eloquent but he had no clue what else to say at that moment. 

“That ache you’re feeling is the bond trying to solidify across too much distance,” Troy sighed, reaching down and grasping his shirt so he could pull it over his head. “Those thoughts you’re having are a direct result of your mating. It’s  _ supposed  _ to work that way. Centaurians are a warrior people. They’re not domestic, and the mating flower is supposed to make them want to settle down and procreate.” 

“Well, I’m not a goddamn Centaurian!” Peter snapped, jumping off the desk and snatching up his own shirt, barely stopping himself from bringing it to his nose to inhale Yondu’s scent. 

“No, but your mind is connected to one now,” Troy said watching Peter yank his shirt over his head. “You should be with your mate. You have no idea the type of damage you could cause by being here.” He cocked his head to the side, silky white hair spilling over his shoulder in that endearing way of his. “That’s on backwards, by the way.” 

Peter huffed and ripped the shirt off so he could turn it around. “Well Yondu  _ kicked me out _ , so technically it’s his goddamn fault I’m here looking for answers in the first place.” 

“Your mate, do you know what tribe he’s from?” Troy asked, looking back down at his holopad. 

“First of all, stop calling him my  _ mate.  _ That’s fuckin’ weird, alright?” Peter snapped, pushing himself back to lean against the desk. “Second of all, Yondu’s been a Ravager for his whole damn life as far as I know. I dunno what you mean by  _ tribe _ .” 

Troy opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the dinging of Peter’s communicator. He pulled it out and groaned, irritated at the way his heart leapt in his chest at Yondu’s grinning I.D. image. 

“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was kind of a long filler, but we needed to see the weird problems this bond is causing before we can really get down to the nitty gritty! I hope you liked it anyway, but feel free to let me know if you didn't. Thanks for so much support, guys, it means the absolute world to me <3


	6. Sail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Pokes audience with a very long stick*  
> Soooo it's been a while... I am so sorry about that T_T. The semester got to be too crazy and all of my creative projects hit the back burner.   
> I hope some of you are still around, and that you forgive me!
> 
> Also, someone asked a while back if they could translate one of my stories into another language and I forgot to reply to them but as long as I get credit anyone can feel free to translate into any language they want!
> 
> Thank you guys for your encouraging words even in my absence, and I hope I don't screw the story up because I took so long getting the next chapter up!
> 
> Also, this is super unedited because I wanted it up as quickly as possible so let me know if you see anything wrong with it!

Peter wasn’t aware that he was picking up the call until he’d already done it, and he stared in horror at the finger hovering over the answer key as if it had personally betrayed him. Then Yondu’s snarling face was taking up the screen, and Peter simultaneously wanted to hang right the fuck back up and beg Yondu to come get him - and what the actual fuck was that about?

“Quill!” Yondu barked before Peter could get a word in, and he was taken suddenly back to that moment all those months ago when Yondu had just discovered his betrayal and called him in exactly the same manner. 

“What do you want?” Peter snapped, fighting his weird ass gut reaction of want at seeing his ex captain so hard it went in the opposite direction to make way for biting anger.   
Yondu hiked brow at the venom in Peter’s voice. “What’re you doin’, boy?” 

He couldn’t help the way his gaze flickered over to Troy, who was sitting in his office chair still eyeing Peter with trepidation. “What’s it to you? Last I remember, you were thanking me for saving your goddamn life by kicking me off the damn ship. Didn’t seem to care who I was doin’ then.” 

Yondu’s eyes narrowed at his (very purposeful) use of who instead of what, and Peter watched his reaction with barely concealed fascination. The captain looked torn for what to say, remaining silent a fraction too long in a way Peter doubted anyone but he or Kraglin would have noticed while he tried to parse together his next words. 

“Where are you?” he asked at length. 

Peter’s grin was cheeky and completely fake, a twist of his lips he had to force out with more will than it should have taken. He knew Yondu was upset with him in the same way he’d known the other man had been asleep earlier, and there was that insistent presence in the back of his mind demanding that he make it better right the fuck now. Everyone who knew him even a little bit knew that when he was backed into a corner, forced to do something he didn’t want to do, he rebelled with everything he was worth. “Guess you just didn’t satisfy me, man, had to go find someone else to fix me up right.” 

With that he ignored Troy’s silent wide-eyed warning to stop and turned his communicator so that Yondu could see the very pretty, still disheveled man sitting in front of him. Troy closed his eyes in frustration, and through whatever the fuck kind of bond was happening between Peter and Yondu he felt blind possessive fury. It was less satisfying than it should have been, actually, and Peter instantly felt a little guilty for the action, an emotion he squashed before it had the chance to seed and make him do something stupid like apologize. 

“Who the fuck - “ Yondu started, and Peter clicked the communicator off before he could finish the sentence, self-satisfaction warring with regret inside of him in an instant. 

Troy dropped his head into his hand and groaned, eyeing Peter through his fingers. “You’re a fucking idiot, aren’t you?” 

Peter ignored the ache of Yondu’s anger in the back of his head and shrugged. “Been called that a few times, yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck and sighed, eyeing Troy with trepidation. “So what else can you tell me about this mating shit?” 

“I need a drink,” Troy sighed.

\------

Yondu

Yondu was halfway to the bridge before he realized that he was still mostly naked, pants haphazardly pulled up, the button open. He hadn’t been able to find the shirt he’d had on since the second he’d stepped back onto the ship with that goddamn flower in his hands. He’d barely touched the thing in years, a godawful black v-neck with the words Surrender the Booty on the chest he hadn’t been able to remember purchasing. He had barely taken it off since the day he’d found that flower, and now that he couldn’t find it he was itching for it. 

He stopped and looked down at his bare feet, gritting his teeth and hastening back to his room so he could throw on some shoes and a shirt. He jogged all the way back to the bridge, where he found Kraglin lounging in the captain’s chair and reading something on the holopad he had propped in his lap.

“Kraglin! Where’d you drop off that fucking jackass?” he snapped, and it was testament to how often he actually lost his temper that Kraglin didn’t so much as jump at the sudden appearance of his pissed off captain. 

Kraglin raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his captain, and for the first time Yondu got a glimpse of his first mate’s face without the influence of the flower’s pollen rushing through his veins. One of his eyes was swollen, no longer almost shut but still no more than a slit for him to see through, the bruises around it turning green and yellow as they healed. He had a split lip, a necklace of half healed bruises around his throat, and more scabs on his face than Yondu felt comfortable counting. 

The unfamiliar feeling of guilt washed over him and he almost physically winced at the strength of it. He was an asshole, sure, not a nice man by any means but he’d made it a point to never go overboard in his treatment of his crew no matter how pissed off he was. He’d suffered so many beatings at the hands of the Kree slave masters, the marks from their whips and irons a permanent painting of anger and hate on his blue flesh. He made it a point to never treat his people that way, and the fact that he’d done it to Kraglin who was the closest thing he’d had to family since his exile… well. 

Kraglin knew him better than any man, and he stood when he saw the look on his captain’s face, taking a quick survey of the room to make sure they were alone before setting his holopad down and walking over. “Cap, it wasn’t yer fault. Sides, I’ve had worse from bar fights.” He placed his hand on Yondu’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I know ya wouldn’t, ya know, do this to someone on purpose.”

Yondu looked away, uncomfortable as always with this type of openness with another person, and Kraglin seemed to understand why because when he spoke next it was on a different subject. “I dropped Quill off on Fara. We goin’ after him?” 

He wanted to. 

That had been his plan. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to track his Terran down and rip that orange fucker to shreds before fucking Peter to within an inch of his life next to the body. Yondu’s instincts were singing for it, pulling him inexorably towards Peter with a force that was positively staggering. 

He thought about Peter, thought about the flashes of ecstasy he could recall from the past few days, coming to him in bits and pieces which left him almost reeling. The Terran, it seemed to him, was an entirely different person than he’d been when Yondu had left him on Xandar. There was a new light to his memories of him, a filter over them which made it seem like Yondu had always felt this hazy all consuming want for him and that was goddamn frustrating because Yondu also knew that wasn’t true. 

That glowing chain tethering him to the boy across the distance pulsed to life in his mind’s eye as if to remind him that it was, in fact, still there, and he sneered.   
“No. We’re goin’ as far as we can th’other direction. Got us a job out on Taurus IV.” 

Kraglin beat his fist against his chest in a Ravager salute and turned to enter their coordinates into the system, and as they headed to the nearest jump Yondu ignored the feeling of that chain straining with a willpower to be envied. 

\------  
Peter

Two months. 

It had been two entire months since Peter had made the utterly fucking stupid decision to go and save his ex captain, and he was fine. Really. 

So maybe he had to take a pit stop on Fara once or twice a week so that Troy could work his weird alien magic on whatever connection was still between him and Yondu.   
So maybe he couldn’t sleep without his weekly dose of Troy’s voodoo. 

So maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about Missouri, about summers so humid you felt like you were swimming sometimes the second you walked out the door, about the chirping of birds in the tall trees and the wind blowing through his hair.

So maybe he’d been injured on the job so much lately that they’d had to restock their medical supplies three times in the past two months. 

So what if he’d nearly lost an arm the week before because they’d killed off a beast terrorizing a village and when he’d found out it had a baby he’d tried to keep it. 

It was going to go away and he was going to go on a very long bender and fuck his way across the galaxy and he’d come back and be exactly as he was before. 

“We’re here, assholes. Gear up,” Rocket snapped as he landed the ship and hopped down from his seat. 

Peter stood, looking around to make sure that Groot was nearby before strapping his blasters on and picking up the little twig so he could take up his customary place on Peter’s shoulder.   
As they were walking down the ramp Peter noticed that Groot was scratching the back of his head so hard that little flaky bits of bark were chipping off to fall around his shoulders. “Did you pick off your dead leaves today like I asked you to?” 

“I am Groot.” 

Peter fell into step with Gamora, trailing along behind Rocket. “Oh, really? Then why are you scratching like that?” 

Groot huffed at him but his fingers didn’t still. “I am Groot.” 

“For the love of fuck, Quill, leave him alone,” Rocket snapped suddenly. “What are you, his mother?” 

Peter bristled, shoulders tensing so quickly that Groot was forced to grab a hold of his ear lobe to keep his balance. “What's your problem man? You've been such an asshole lately.”

“What’s my problem?” Rocket hissed, spinning on his heel, lips drawing back from his teeth in a snarl, and it became very clear very quickly that there was something pent up in that reaction. “My problem is that we’ve lost work, lost money, so you can fuck off and visit your fucking boyfriend twice a week. My problem is that you’ve been such a fucking pansy that you’ve become a liability on missions.” Rocket’s fingers twitched, and Peter knew his was just itching to take out his weapon. “My problem is that you’re fucking useless, Quill - “ 

“That’s enough!” Gamora snapped before Peter could get a word in edgewise. She stepped half in front of Peter and he bristled again. “Leave him alone, Rocket.” 

“I don’t need you to stand up for me,” Peter snapped, louder than he intended. Groot squeaked and hopped off of his shoulder onto Gamora’s. 

Gamora turned to him, pitying, and Peter couldn’t stand it. “Peter, I didn’t mean - “

“Aw, does poor widdle Peter need to be protected from mean ol’ Rocket?” Rocket simpered, rubbing his eyes in a mockery of a baby wiping away tears. 

Peter grit his teeth, the leather of his gloves creaking as he clenched his fists. “Shut the fuck up, you stupid raccoon!” 

Rocket’s fur stood on end and he pulled his blaster off of his back, snarling as it whirred to life. “I. Told you. Not. To. Call me that!” 

“Oh, sorry, did I make you angry?” Peter knelt down, one hand on his blaster and the other on his knee. “If I’m such a goddamn pansy, why don’t you come over here and make me shut up?” 

“Rocket, don’t,” Gamora clipped, raising one hand at Rocket who looked ready to pounce. 

“Come on, you little trash panda,” Peter goaded, smirking. “Come show me how much of a liability I am.” 

With a loud angry growl, Rocket lost what little patience he had. Before Peter knew it Rocket at tossed his weapon aside and he had a face full of fur, claws ripping into his face and neck so rapidly he barely had time to feel one scratch before the next one hit. He screamed, taking hold of Rocket’s long fluffy tail and pulling, knowing it would hurt and taking savage satisfaction in it because he’d had enough. He managed to rip Rocket away from his head and held him out by his tail, snarling and flailing and clearly unimaginably frustrated about the situation. There was spit spilling out of his lips, flicking over Peter’s face as the raccoon wildly thrashed to get out of Peter’s grip. 

Peter drew his fist back, fully intending to beat the little asshole like a goddamn pinata, but before he could let the hit fly a large strong hand grasped his forearm, locking him down. He turned to find Drax, of course, holding onto his arm with a solemn expression. Rocket struggled in his grasp, clawing at his thick leather glove, and a trickle of blood slid down his cheek and over his jaw from where the raccoon had scratched him. “Let me go, man!” 

“I will not, friend Peter,” Drax said solemnly. “I cannot allow you to do this.” 

“He fucking started it!” Peter snapped, shaking Rocket slightly. 

“And I’ll fuckin’ finish it too, ya big pink monkey!” Rocket snarled. 

Drax sighed. “Rocket is not wrong, Quill. You have been distracted lately, not as strong or - “ 

Peter let go of Rocket, taking no satisfaction as he fell to the ground with an undignified screech. He wrenched his arm out of Drax’s grasp. “Excuse me?”

Gamora placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Peter, he didn’t mean - “ 

When he shook her hand off and whirled around, he realized suddenly that he was separate from all of them. They were standing in front of him, united, watching to see what he was about to do and realized that Rocket had only given voice to what everyone was thinking. He clenched his teeth and let a shaky breath out of his nose. “I see how it is. You guys all agree with him then? Think I’m weak? A liability?” 

Gamora stepped forward, hand outstretched, and worse than Rocket’s fury was her pity. “Peter - “ 

Peter took a step back, looking from one face to the next, growing increasingly furious because goddamnit there was nothing wrong with him. “You know what? That’s fine.” He took another step back, not missing how none of them, not even Groot, were coming after him. “You guys think you’re better off without me?” 

“No one said that, Peter,” Gamora said, and Rocket scoffed. 

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, actually.” 

“Shut up, Rocket!” Gamora snapped, but Peter was already stepping back onto the ramp of his ship. 

“That’s fine. Have fun trying to get off this planet once the job’s done, though.” He turned and pressed the button to raise the ramp, and as he did he heard Groot cry out once. “I don’t need you guys. I was doing just fine on my own before.” 

“Peter, don’t!” Gamora said, and Peter turned away from the aching pity in her gaze, taking satisfaction in the silence that washed over him when the ramp had shut all the way.


	7. Some Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters, yay!! I know the last one was short after such a long wait but it seemed like a good place to leave off. Here's the next part, which I absolutely wrote instead of studying for finals as I should have been....

Peter raised his fist to knock on the door twice, and it wasn’t half a minute before it opened. Troy didn’t even say a word, didn’t comment on his scratched to shit face or the massive bags under his eyes, just stepped back and let Peter trudge inside.

“Sit down before you fall down,” the man said when Peter had done nothing but stand in the middle of his cozy book-filled living room. Peter obeyed without question, and when Troy came back into the room he had a med kit under one arm and a glass full of some blue alcoholic beverage in his other hand.

Peter took the glass and downed the drink in one fortifying gulp as Troy say next to him and opened the med kit.

“So, you got into a fight with that rodent, yes?” Troy asked at length, turning on the dermal regenerator and setting it aside so it could charge up before pulling out some gauze and a wound cleaning solution.

“Dude, how many times do I have to tell you not to read me like that?” Peter sighed, no heat behind the words, really, but it was tradition at this point.

“You’re projecting so loud right now that I knew you were coming from down the block, first of all.” Peter hissed as Troy wiped the crusted blood off of a particularly nasty cut. “Second of all, I didn’t read anything about the raccoon. It’s pretty obvious that you were in a fight with some kind of animal.”

Peter sighed as Troy folded the gauze and wet it down again before continuing on to the next wound.

“He said I’m weak. A liability.”

Troy hummed, low and soothing from somewhere deep in his chest and, not for the first time, Peter found himself leaning slightly towards him. “You know you’re not weak. It’s just - “

“I swear to god, man, if you say ‘the mating bond’ one more time I am going to lose it,” Peter snapped and Troy chuckled.

“You don’t believe in any god.” He tossed to gauze aside and grabbed up a fresh piece. “Besides, you won’t hurt me. Who would you come to when the bond became too much for you if not me?”

“Is that considered blackmail? I’m pretty sure that’s illegal where I’m from.”

Troy laughed, and Peter had the sudden urge to kiss him, to push him back onto the couch and worship his body until he knew nothing but Peter’s name. Troy knew, of course he did, and he flicked him chidingly on the shoulder. “Don’t even think about it.”

“But - “

“You know it’s just the bond searching for someone to settle with in the absence of your mate, and you also know that it won’t work,” Troy said, examining Peter’s face to make sure he’d gotten all of the blood before picking up the dermal regenerator and making sure it had all its charge.

Peter pouted, partially because he knew Troy was right but also partially because every time he was here like this he wondered if that was actually true. He’d never had a steady lover, though he had wanted to give it a try with Gamora when they’d first met. He liked Troy, liked his steady presence and his soft smiles and his warm hands. It was comforting in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever craved before, and Troy had assured him that it was because he’d touched Peter’s bond with Yondu so many times that it was becoming confused but sometimes he wondered if that was all there was to it. Sometimes he wondered if it even mattered.

Once the cuts had all been healed and the med kit had been put away Troy settled himself back on the couch next to Peter, a respectful distance away but still close enough to touch.

“Have you felt him lately?” he asked at length and Peter frowned. He always felt vulnerable like this, but how could he remain closed off when he regularly invited this man to dig into his mind? If he could be open with anyone, it was surely him.

“A lot more than usual, actually,” he replied, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes. Yondu was sleeping, he knew, much more comfortably than Peter ever did lately. “I can’t _sleep_ anymore. Every time I try I feel it yanking me towards him, or I can’t stop _thinking_ about him, about home, about everything. I’m exhausted.”

He opened his eyes when he felt Troy scoot closer, the cushions dipping with his weight. “May I?” he asked, holding out his long orange fingers over Peter’s forehead. Peter nodded and closed his eyes again.

It wasn’t long before Troy drew back, and when Peter once again opened his eyes he noticed that Troy’s brows were knitted together. He looked concerned.

“Peter, you’re sick,” he said, soft fingers hovering over Peter’s cheek.

“I’m not sick, I’m just tired. I told you I haven’t been able to sleep, but just lock down the bond again and I’ll be good to go.”

Troy drew his lip between his teeth, still frowning. “You don’t understand. It’s not just the lack of sleep. This isn’t just physical sickness, it’s _spiritual_ sickness. Yondu has locked down the bond on his end, but his species isn’t psi null like yours. You can’t lock it down, and so everything it’s supposed to be doing to make sure you two get together is coming back on you. I’ve been lessening the effects, but, sweetheart, it isn’t going to go away. It’s going to get worse.”

Peter frowned. Worse? Worse than the constant tug, the constant aching feeling of want and emptiness, the constant degradation into this _weak_ thing he was becoming?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Troy sighed. “It means that this is just the beginning. You’re going to get sicker, weaker. It’s really hurting you, whether you consciously feel it or not.”

“Is there something I can do to, you know, make it stop?”

The effort it took Troy not to roll his eyes was very likely gargantuan. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Peter, you _need your mate._ ”

“And _I’ve_ told _you_ a thousand times that he is _not_ my mate, and I am absolutely _not_ going to go crawling to him like some sort of - of - needy little bitch!” Peter snapped, hackles bared.

“Alright, alright,” Troy sighed, raising his hands in surrender. “Down boy.”

Peter was too exhausted to stay angry, honestly, raw and drained. “Thank you.”

Troy pulled his long white hair out of its bun and ran his fingers through it, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. Peter had no idea what he was thinking about, but it didn’t take him long to come to a decision on whatever it was.

“Peter,” the other man all but purred, and Peter hiked an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Troy said unfolding his sinfully long legs and standing. The air was thick, suddenly, with tension, and Peter felt his dick stir for the first time in months because he absolutely knew what Troy had been thinking about by the hot smoulder in his eyes.

He shifted down on the couch, spreading his legs slightly. “Oh yeah?” he husked as Troy gracefully dropped down, straddling him with those thick thighs.

“Yeah,” he whispered, lips ghosting over Peter’s and Peter reached up to give his silky soft hair a little tug.

“Thinking’s overrated,” he whispered back, shifting his hips so that his already half hard member pushed against Troy’s ass.

Troy hummed, and then his lips were on Peter’s and Peter’s arms were wrapping around his muscular back and Peter _groaned_. Troy rolled his hips down, dragging his dick over Peter’s stomach as Peter reached up to pull his cotton t-shirt over his head and toss it away. Troy huffed out a laugh into his open mouth and reached between them to give Peter a hard stroke through his pants and Peter grunted, hips jerking up to meet that questing hand.

“Fuck, baby,” he panted just before Troy’s tongue lapped into his mouth, twining with his own, and Peter ignored the way the bond twinged.

Troy hastily shoved Peter’s coat off of his shoulders and Peter busied himself with laving at the other man’s dark orange nipples, moaning slightly as another shift of their hips had his dick rubbing against the other man’s taught ass.

Distantly, he felt Yondu stirring from his sleep.

Troy broke their kiss to pull off Peter’s own shirt, and then his hot lips and nipping teeth were making their way from his earlobe to his jaw. Peter panted, reaching out to undo Troy’s pants so that he could get a handful of the main event. It was heady, being wrapped in this person who had been inside of his mind so many times, enticing enough that Peter could push that alien feeling of _wrong_ to the back of his mind while he ran his hands over all that exposed orange flesh.

“I’m so sorry about this, sweetheart,” Troy whispered, and before Peter could pull himself out of his hazy arousal he felt Troy’s attention shift to the scar Yondu had left on his shoulder during their fuck-fest. First a hot tongue and then, suddenly, a pair of teeth were latching down over the spot and the physical pain was nothing compared to the mental pain that ripped through him with a force like a tidal wave.

Troy reached up and pressed both hands to Peter’s head, holding him down with his body while Peter’s body tried to lift itself off of the couch in a painful convulsion.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay,” Troy soothed, pressing their foreheads together but that was a distant feeling compared to what was happening inside, and he was suddenly at once sitting on Troy’s couch and also falling out of a bed and onto a cold metal floor.

_“What the fucking shit!” Yondu hissed, banging his elbow on the floor in his haste to grab onto his head._

Peter gasped, throwing his own head back, and Troy brushed his hair, wet with sweat, back from his forehead soothingly.

_Yondu was panting, agony unlike anything he’d ever felt ripping through his skull, and he didn’t know what the fuck was happening but his body seemed to because before he knew it he was stumbling onto the bridge, half naked, and shoving a startled Kraglin out of the pilot’s seat._

“Troy, what did you _do?”_ Peter groaned, and by now he was absolutely drenched in sweat.

“I’m so sorry, baby, but you need this,” Troy said, pushing their foreheads together and Peter didn’t have time to reply because he was -

_Yondu, sitting in the captain’s chair, panting, head still screaming in agony, following that chain that was pulsing red in his mind’s eye. Something was wrong. Something was happening. Someone was touching him, touching his mate, and he needed to get to him before -_

“You sneaky fuck,” Peter hissed, too weak to even lift his head. “He’s coming.”

Troy breathed a sigh of relief and kissed Peter once on his sweaty temple. “You’ll thank me later.” He placed his palm on Peter’s forehead and leaned in. “Now sleep.”

When Peter pulled himself out of the first truly deep sleep he’d had in months he was a little startled to find himself in his own bed. He sat up, frowning, looking down at his furs pooled around his naked torso. His head was throbbing, and he was sticky with dried sweat.

What the fuck was going on?

The last thing he remembered was -

“Fuck!” he hissed, tossing his covers back and careening out his bedroom door. He smacked his shoulder on the doorframe in his haste but ignored it in favor of dashing to the cockpit to see if his suspicions were correct, because if they were then the person flying _his ship_ would be -

“Troy! What the fuck, man?” Peter snarled, storming over to find, as he’d suspected, the other man seated in the pilot’s seat.

Troy didn’t even turn around, just pressed a few buttons on the holo pad in front of him. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was hit by a goddamn truck and had my _ship_ stolen, how the fuck do you think I’m feeling?” Peter snapped, clutching his head as a wave of dizziness overtook him. “What are you _doing_?”

“We’re en route to Centauri-IV,” Troy said, casually, like he was talking about the weather. “Your Centaurian is following, of course.”

“You - Troy, Christ, do you have any idea what Yondu is capable of?” Peter hissed, gripping the headrest on Troy’s chair. “He’s _so mad_. What if he kills you, man?”

Troy shrugged. “He won’t. I put my own mark over his mating scar, and the second he sees you his biological imperative is going to take over and claiming you again is all he’ll be able to think about. Being in your presence again will soothe him, and we can all go on planet and ask their healers to break the bond.”

“You don’t know him. I’m surprised he hasn’t caught up with us already. If he does, we’re so fucked,” Peter groaned, sitting down in the copilot’s seat.

Peter’s comm wailed at him with an incoming call, and when he glanced over he saw Kraglin’s I.D. picture floating on the screen.

“That man has called no less than eighteen times in the past three hours,” Troy said, rolling his eyes.

Peter took a deep, fortifying breath and pressed the answer key.

“Fucking hell, Pete!” Kraglin snapped, and he looked absolutely livid. “Took you long enough to fucking answer, you big jackass!”

“Kraglin, what - “

“I don’t know what the fuck you did, but the Cap’s got a fuckin’ bug up his ass the size of Xandar. He killed three of the crew and just… dragged me to the third quadrant and cut the rest of ‘em loose,” Kraglin all but whispered, and Peter took a second to note that he was very clearly hiding in the control room.

“He let the _Eclector_ go?” Peter asked, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Sure as fuck did, along with the rest of the crew. Pretty sure the only reason I wasn’t with them is because he can’t pilot this with just one person.” Kraglin paused to glance off screen. “Look, we’re almost on you, alright? He’s got the ship cloaked, but seriously any second now he’s gonna latch onto you and drag you in.”

As if on cue, the _Milano’s_ alarms began to blare, warning them that they were caught in someone’s beam. Peter’s head throbbed in agony and he glanced over at Troy, who did, finally, look a little apprehensive.

“Guess I’ll see you in a second, Krags,” he said, clicking off the comm before the man had a chance to answer and storming back to his room to get the rest of his clothes on. He didn’t want to meet the murderous captain half naked, that was for sure.

Troy was leaning against the doorway, watching him pull on his second boot.

“I’m sorry, Peter, but you couldn’t see what’s been happening inside of you,” he said, imploring. “If it went on much longer you could have _died_ , from sleep deprivation, from a misstep on a mission, from the bond stretching too far for too long. I couldn’t just let that happen.”

Peter heard the unmistakable sound of the ship landing in a hangar and he bristled as the bond all but _sang_ at him. Yondu was coming closer, and whatever connection was between them was absolutely ecstatic. His heart thudded in his chest, and there were those two parts to him again warring with one another; the sane one telling him to run as fast as he could in the other direction, and the insane one telling him to run as fast as he could towards the captain.

He didn’t really have a choice in the matter, in the end, seeing as he was already on the captain’s ship with little hope of escape. He patted Troy once on the shoulder as he made his way to the ramp.

“You’d better stay in here for now,” he said, checking to make sure his blasters were easily accessible. “I’ll come get you when this blows over.” He paused and shrugged. “Or Yondu will come get you after he kills me. It’s 50/50 at this point.”

He hopped down from the ramp before it was fully lowered and began sprinting across the hangar, passing Kraglin who had evidently come out of hiding when he heard the hangar doors close.

“Don’t let Yondu get to the guy in my ship, Krags, I’m serious. He was trying to help,” he called as he passed, and then he was full pelt running in the direction the bond was dragging him in and he couldn’t have stopped if he’d tried because the force of it was staggering. There was no conscious effort on his part as he made his way through the halls, just the bond singing at him as he got closer, strength he hadn’t had in weeks returning to his limbs as his boots hit the metal floor so fast it felt they were barely touching down.

There was no pause as he rounded the corner and found the wild eyed captain on the other end of the hallway, no time for thought as the bond dragged them towards each other like magnets. Before he knew it he was being slammed against a wall, head knocking painfully against the metal but it didn’t matter because Yondu’s hot fingers were under his shirt branding his skin and there was a knee inserting itself between his thighs and there were teeth on his jaw, his neck.

Yondu was all over him, hands, teeth, dragging his clothed cock over Peter’s and grunting into his flesh. Peter leaned down to try and capture Yondu’s lips in a kiss but Yondu was having none of that, eyes flashing as he roughly shoved Peter’s head against the wall and pulled his jacket halfway down his arms. Peter pushed it the rest of the way down because Yondu had already moved onto the button on Peter’s pants and was shoving them down to pool around his ankles.

Peter moaned, reaching out to pull Yondu’s sopping cock out of his pants, but Yondu didn’t give him a chance to play before he was spinning Peter around and bending him at the waist. Peter panted as he braced his forearms on the wall, ready, so ready to give Yondu absolutely anything at that moment because he hadn’t felt this right in months and he needed this, needed it like he needed air and food and water to live.

Without the flower’s actual influence Peter’s body was back to normal, and so when Yondu pushed the slick head of his cock against Peter’s entrance it didn’t give as it had before. Peter hadn’t screwed his way across the galaxy for nothing, though, and was able to relax just enough to get that little bit of give. It hurt, the stretch without preparation almost too much for him to take but he didn’t care because he’d never wanted anything so much in his entire life.

“Mine,” Yondu rasped from behind him, already setting a bruising pace and Peter keened in agreement, hazy, pleasure fueled thoughts spinning in and out of his mind’s eye before he could grasp him until he was only this, the joining of their bodies, the answer to the bond’s constant painful song.

Peter didn’t know how long their rough fucking lasted, but he came first, shouting out his climax so it echoed through the metal halls. A few pumps of Yondu’s hips later and the captain tensed, burying himself all the way inside of Peter and then there were teeth on _that spot_ sinking in and covering up whatever Troy had done until the bond’s frenzied pulsing calmed, satiated, content that its two ends were once again connected.

\------

Peter woke twelve hours later, naked and buried in the unmistakable scent of Yondu’s furs. His ass ached and his stomach growled but for the first time since all of this had started he felt well rested, he felt strong and clear headed.

Yondu wasn’t in the room with him, and Peter tried to not be disturbed by the fact that he knew the captain was currently in the mess hall. He turned and stretched, fully intending to get out of the bed and get dressed, but turning to bury his nose in the furs instead. He closed his eyes and dozed, a light sleep where he could still hear the whirring of the engine and the sound of Yondu’s boots as he made his way into the room fifteen minutes later.

“Hey, wake up ya jackass,” Yondu snipped, dropping something on the bedside table.

Peter turned and frowned at him. “I was sleeping.”

Yondu snorted, using his pinky nail to pick at his teeth. “Nah, you wasn’t. Got a direct line to you right now, remember?” He tapped his forehead twice. “Knew when ya woke up, knew you didn’t go back to sleep.”

Peter sighed and sat up, wincing at the ache in his ass as he did. He noticed Yondu’s gaze snapping to him out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head the man was looking the other way.

“Brought ya some food,” the captain said, sucking on his teeth and crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“Why?” Peter blurted, eyeing the tray as if it was going to bite him.

“Coz yer weak, and yer sick,” Yondu snapped, glaring. “Coz I can’t ignore my fuckin _instincts_ when yer this goddamn close.”

Peter, who was actually really fucking hungry, reached for the tray and started shoveling food in so fast he was surprised he didn’t choke on it. He barely even tasted it, and it was all gone in record time. He washed it down with the large cup of water Yondu handed him and fell back on the bed with a contented sigh.

“Thanks,” he said, draping his arm over his eyes.

He hadn’t felt this calm in so long he had almost forgotten the feeling. The bond was purring, almost, washing him in contentment so deep he almost believed it was real. He knew, deep down, that it wasn’t but reckoned that he deserved half a second to pretend that he wasn’t being shamelessly manipulated by a bond he’d never asked for.

“Did you guys find Troy?” he asked when the silence stretched on and it didn’t seem like Yondu was going anywhere.

Yondu - there was no other word for it - _growled_ , a low deep rumbling from his chest and Peter sat up to see that his captain was undeniably suddenly tense.

“You mean that orange fuck you been fuckin’ around with all these months?” he snarled, and Peter raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.

“First of all, I haven’t been fucking anyone thank you very much. Second of all, even if I _had_ been it would be none of your goddamn business, so - “

“ _None of my_ \- “ Yondu cut himself off with a deep breath through his nose, turning his head and cracking his neck. “I felt it every time he touched the bond. I know you’re lyin’ boy, so save it. And it’s _absolutely_ my business because you’re _mine._ ”

Peter hopped out of bed, unashamed of his nakedness, something in him even preening when Yondu’s eyes were drawn down to his nether regions. “He had to touch the goddamn bond because _you_ kicked me out when I did this to _save your fucking life!_ I couldn’t _sleep_ , I could barely _eat,_ and I almost died like eight times because I was so goddamn distracted! So fuck you and the horse you rode in on, man, I needed someone to help me and he was there when _you weren’t_. You can’t just - just _claim_ me after that bullshit. I know the bond’s taking the reins here but you gotta control yourself for half a second.”

Yondu stood, too, prowling around the side of the bed until he had Peter backed up against the wall. “I don’t want someone else _touching you_.”

Peter shoved him back so he could get some space between them, though he wanted nothing less. “Don’t. It’s this _stupid_ bond talking, and - “

Yondu was in his space again, running long hot fingers over his side, down and around so he could slot them between his cheeks and Peter very quickly forgot what his argument had been because there was no room for it when the bond was telling him how much he needed this.

He huffed, frustrated at his lack of control, but leaned down to kiss Yondu anyway. Yondu dodged the kiss, shaking his head once and pushing Peter back until the backs of his knees hit the bed and he fell painfully onto his ass.

“Don’t care if it’s just the bond,” Yondu said, and Peter would have argued but Yondu was dropping to his knees and pulling Peter’s legs up, spreading Peter’s cheeks with an appreciative groan that went straight to Peter’s cock, and then there was a tongue laving at his entrance, soothing the hurt and driving Peter wild.

\------

_“Cap_ ,” Kraglin’s voice crackled over Yondu’s handheld comm and Peter opened his eyes to watch the captain feel around on the floor for it.

He huffed when he’d finally grabbed it, sitting up and giving Peter a view of his strong, scar and tattoo covered back.

“What?” he snapped into the comm, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“ _We’re almost there. Troy says we need ya up here because they ain’t gonna let us land unless they see you_.”

“Alright,” Yondu said, uncharacteristically compliant, and he tossed the comm onto the bedside table with a clank before pulling himself out of the bed and setting about finding his clothes.

“Where are we going?” Peter asked, pulling himself out of the bed and searching for his own pants.

“Centauri - IV,” Yondu said, pulling his pants over his hips and buttoning them. He was terse, and even Peter who was, as Troy had put it, psi null, could feel his tension.

He paused with his shirt in his hand. “We’re - what? As in, your home planet?”

“Yeah, my goddamn home planet,” Yondu snapped, pulling his coat around his shoulders. “Gotta get this fucking bond broken before I lose my goddamn mind.”

Before Peter could answer Yondu was out the door, and Peter was left standing half naked in his bedroom, bereft, confused, and entirely unsure about what he was feeling and what the bond was making him feel.

 


	8. Overwhelming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard to write. I have every major plot point worked out, but the in-between things are killing me!   
> On a different note, I'm so glad you guys are still around for this! Thanks so much for reviewing still.   
> I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a great New Years. Speaking as someone living in the U.S., I am super ready for 2017 to be behind me, and also slightly terrified for what 2018 will bring haha.

Peter sat back down on the bed, pants unbuttoned at his waist, and dropped his head into his hands. He felt stronger than he had in weeks, clear headed, and even though he was still a little pissed at Troy, the fucking tease, for taking his choice away from him he was man enough to admit that it had been the right decision. At least privately. The bond was pleased, anyway, filling his chest with warmth every time it did its thing and reached out to find the other half of itself near within Yondu. 

He rubbed his eyes with his palms to alleviate some of the heaviness he felt in the lids. His sleep the night before had been deep but he'd had the  _ strangest  _ dream. 

_ He’d found himself walking through a rainforest, with lush green trees so tall they seemed to disappear into the blue of the sky. Giant purple flowers with red leaves, multi colored birds, massive bugs he’d never encountered before were all around him, but he wasn’t bothered. He just kept walking, headed in the right direction, he knew, even though there wasn’t any clear path to be seen. The air was hot, sticky wet with humidity, and it reminded him of that ache he’d had since he’d slept with Yondu - the one that longed for sticky hot Missouri summers, lazy days in the burning sun.  _

_ Eventually he had come to a sort of gorge, an area where the thick foliage stopped and dropped into the crevice in the ground. When he stepped closer to peer over the edge he found a river, its water an impossibly dark blue. The river was restless, churning up into frothy white waves and roaring as it lapped violently at the edges of the canyon.  _

_ Peter remembered wanting to touch it, to jump down into the roiling depths and submerge himself in it. He was about to do just that, crouching down already on the edge in preparation for his plunge but something stopped him. He frowned, brows knitting together as he looked down the path of the river, where it bent until his gaze could no longer follow it.  _

_ He could hear the water churning in the gorge, calling out to him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the direction the river was flowing.  _

Before he’d been able to come to a decision he’d jerked awake to the sound of Kraglin’s voice over the comm, and he was left with the aching feeling that he was supposed to be going somewhere.

Peter’s head jerked up in the direction of the door, a bitter taste coating the back of his tongue and a tingling sensation taking up residence in his neck. He’d felt Yondu angry before since their bond had formed - so many times, honestly, that he wondered if the captain had any modes other than  _ pissed the fuck off  _ and  _ happy because of profit  _ nowadays - but this was different. This felt  _ deep _ , and primal in a way Peter wasn’t sure he would have been able to identify before this whole business with the bond. Yondu was seething in anger, and before Peter could even jump to his feet he was assaulted with an image of Troy shoved against the wall of the cockpit, the blue of Yondu’s hand contrasting starkly with the orange of Troy’s throat. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Peter hissed, teeth clenching both because of the agonizing pain Yondu’s projections always lit up in him and because of the overflowing anger from the captain he could feel simmering beneath his own skin. He hastily buttoned up his pants and shoved his sockless feet into his unlaced boots, grabbing a shirt off the floor on his way out the door. 

“God fucking damnit!” he snarled as he shoved his head and arms into the shirt he’d picked up and was assaulted with Yondu’s thoughts again. 

_ This is the guy you’ve been fucking all these months, Pete? Pathetic.  _

Peter grunted as the force of the assault on his mind sent him crashing into a wall. He shoved himself off and pushed on, breathing erratic, torn between wanting to save his friend/sometimes lover and the pervasive and distressing urge to get to his mate and assure him of who he belonged to.

When he finally did reach the cockpit he found more or less exactly what he’d expected to find: Troy, shoved up against the wall with Yondu’s hand around his throat, a glowing arrow resting threateningly at his temple. 

Before anyone could react Peter was across the room, unsure about whether he was going to obey the bond and soothe Yondu or try and save his friend right up until he grabbed the captain by the shoulder and spun him around, breaking his grip on Troy’s throat in what was quite probably a painful manner. Yondu was strong, but as they’d somewhat unfortunately discovered Peter was just this side of stronger, and before Yondu could get a word in Peter had him across the room and pinned to the other wall with a forearm to his chest. 

“Get. Off,” Yondu hissed through clenched teeth, and Peter heard Troy coughing from the other side of the room. 

“No,” Peter grunted, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears and that niggling little part of him he knew was the bond telling him to stop what he was doing right the fuck now. “You need to calm the fuck down, Yondu.” 

Yondu’s eyes narrowed and Peter could tell that his anger was redirecting. “Don’t you fucking tell me what I need to do, boy. I’m gonna kill that asshole for - “ 

Peter interrupted what was sure to be a fantastic tirade by shoving his arm harder into Yondu’s chest and bringing their faces closer together. He found that the amount of force he was physically able to exert was absolutely not enough to hurt Yondu, and he remembered when Yondu had tried to aim his blaster at him and couldn’t seem to. He knew without being told that this was the same thing happening, that it was the bond preventing him from doing any actual harm. 

“For  _ what _ , Yondu?” Peter asked, eyes narrowed. Yondu pushed against him and Peter braced himself, having to use all of his body’s strength to keep the captain contained. “For helping me? For touching me?” 

“Yes! I - “ 

“Listen to yourself!” Peter’s voice was a harsh whisper. He could feel Yondu’s angry breath puffing over his own lips and it was all he could do to prevent his body’s aching  _ want  _ from taking over. He gave his head a slight shake to clear it. It was important that he kept his wits about him. It was the bond doing it to him, trying to distract him from his anger, trying to bring them together again. Yondu’s body was radiating heat through their clothes and the sensation made Peter’s eyelids flutter. God, he wanted him. He let out a shaky breath. “This isn’t you. You don’t give two shits who touches me, remember? You - it’s the  _ bond _ . It’s manipulating us. Don’t be stupid. Don’t give into it.” 

Peter felt Yondu’s deep throated growl vibrate through where their skin was touching and he shivered. He had moved forward in his effort to keep Yondu still, and he was suddenly achingly aware of how tightly their bodies were pressed together. Despite his own words, despite his determination, he felt arousal pooling low in his belly. 

Yondu cocked his head to the side, mood shifting as he glanced down at Peter’s tongue darting out to wet his own suddenly very dry lips. The captain huffed out a little laugh and rolled his hips subtly into Peter’s, pushing forward so that their lips were nearly touching. “Best listen to your own advice, Pete. Don’t be stupid. Don’t give into it.” 

Peter swallowed thickly. Yondu’s lips were absolutely not touching his, but he was so aware of the miniscule amount of space between them that it felt like a physical barrierer.  

“Cap, we’re being hailed,” Kraglin piped in from his spot in the pilot’s seat, and he’d been so silent through the ordeal that Peter had honestly forgotten he was there at all.  

_ Please _ , Peter thought, the word coming to his mind unbidden, and he let out a harsh breath through his nose.  _ Please _ , he thought again, and this time he felt like he was sending the thought outward. Could he do that? Troy had claimed that he was psi null, but from the way Yondu’s brow rose he got the feeling that he had actually sent the thought to the captain. 

“Please what, Pete?” Yondu whispered out loud. Peter felt a burning hand on his hip, slipping beneath his thin shirt to stroke at his bare skin. Peter wasn’t sure how the situation had suddenly changed, but Yondu was definitely no longer angry and Peter was absolutely no longer in control. Yondu’s hips rolled into his again, shamelessly unconcerned about their audience, and Peter realized that he was also no longer only half aroused. He was suddenly  _ aching  _ with want, the change so quick that it left him reeling. 

“Please what?” Yondu asked again, and hadn’t Peter been mad about something? “It’s just the bond, Quill. Manipulating us, is that right? You don’t actually want this.” Yondu’s lips brushed his, finally, the touch barely there but also burning hot against Peter’s mouth, branding him.

Before he could react, Yondu pushed him away with an embarrassing lack of effort and patted his cheek once. As he walked away Peter turned so he could lean against the wall, absolutely  _ not _ using it for support because his legs were suddenly wobbly, alright? The frown he felt his face scrunch in to was going to be a permanent feature if he didn't stop it, but the way he was being clearly manipulated by this weird voodoo bullshit left a sour taste in his mouth. It was worse now, he realized as his seething anger at his inability to control his own actions flitted out of reach before he could wrap his teeth around it. At least before he'd been able to hold onto the anger and frustration. He glanced over at Troy, who was rubbing his throat and watching Peter shrewdly.

“Put em on, Krags,” Yondu snapped, and Peter could see him visibly shake himself out of whatever mood he was in from the corner of his eye. 

The viewscreen flickered to life and Peter forgot his frustration with his inability to be frustrated when faced with only the second Centaurian he'd ever seen in all his years in space. He was young, early twenties if Peter had to guess, with smooth blue skin just a little lighter than Yondu's but completely unmarred. He had a strong jaw, and sharp almond shaped red eyes. What really drew Peter's attention, though, what pushed all other observations about the man on their viewscreen to the side, was the vibrant red crest on top of his head. It was massive, shooting up from a sort of widow’s peak at the top of his forehead and curling elegantly back to disappear beneath the collar of the white robes he was wearing. Peter couldn't be sure over the crackly connection of the comm, but it looked almost feathered. 

“We do not allow non Centaurian species to land on our planet during this season,” the man said with no preamble, glancing at something on his desk. “If this is a diplomatic mission I can direct your call to the appropriate office, but I'm sorry to inform you that we are currently not accepting new - “ 

“I  _ am  _ Centaurian, ya fuckin’ tight wad. Open your goddamn eyes,” Yondu snapped, pushing his long coat back on one side so he could place his hand on his hip. The action also, Peter knew, showed the sparkling tip of his arrow. It was both a show of force and a feeling of comfort for the captain, something Peter had picked up on when he was maybe twenty two and they'd been going on more missions together than not. 

The man blinked before snapping his head up and Peter could see the moment he realized his mistake in the way his eyes widened and his jaw snapped shut. “You - I - I'm so sorry, I didn't realize because of - “ He reached up and touched his own crest once before seeming to realize what he was doing and dropping his hand back to the desk with an audible thud. 

“What? What were you gonna say, eh buddy?” Yondu asked, and his tone was light but Peter knew the anger behind the words without the bond having to show it to him. He’d never considered Yondu’s fin before, never really wondered why he had the implant. He’d always assumed it was just some extreme measure he’d gone to in order to assure that he had a strong weapon always available to him. It never would have occurred to him that it was a prosthetic for something his species was born with. 

Just as he was starting to feel sorry for the captain his head throbbed in agony and the voice of the man in question filled his mind.  _ Don’t you fuckin’ dare pity me, asshole. _

Peter rubbed his forehead and glared, bearing his teeth at the captain before turning his attention back to the flustered Centaurian on the screen.

“Nothing! Nothing, I just -” The man took a deep breath and it seemed to calm him. “I am sorry for the confusion, sir. You are of course welcome to land. Dock eight is available for your use. I'm sending the coordinates now.” He glanced up and locked eyes with Peter, and even over the crackly comm Peter could feel the Centaurian’s distaste for him in his heavy crimson gaze. “Your… companions, on the other hand… I'm afraid they will have to be quarantined to your vessel during your stay.” 

Peter bristled, and he felt his lip raise in a snarl of its own volition as he took an angry step forward. “Like hell, you sanctimonious - “

“Sir, Mr. Udonta and the Terran, Mr. Quill, have found themselves in a rather precarious situation regarding a species of plant native to your planet and are both in need of medical attention only a Centaurian healer can provide,” Troy piped in, stepping in front of Peter before he could heinously insult the person they needed to grant them clearance. “I recognize that you have protocol to follow; however, if the situation proves deadly and Peter Quill - one of the notorious Guardians of the Galaxy - dies as a result of your frankly blatant xenophobia I'm afraid you'll have quite the number of off world visitors on your hands demanding justice for the death of one of its greatest protectors.” 

Peter blinked and turned to catch Yondu’s gaze, who raised one surprised brow at him. Peter shrugged in answer and they turned back to see what the dick head’s reaction would be. 

He looked undeniably flustered, with his mouth half agape and a light purple blush high on his cheeks. “Peter Quill as in Star Prince?” 

“It’s Star  _ Lord! _ Damnit, why can’t anyone get it right?” Peter snapped, tossing up his hands in frustration. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know the protocol for this situation,” the guy said without acknowledging Peter’s outburst. “I’ll be right back.” 

The screen went blank for a moment before an image of a gently flowing river popped up, their version of hold music apparently. 

Yondu chuckled from beside him, and when Peter turned to look he saw the captain’s signature shit eating grin. The mood shift would have been enough to give a normal person whiplash, but to Peter it was a sign of normalcy. Yondu’s moods were ever changing, and the fact that he’d gone from sour to playful so quickly made something in Peter unclench. “Star Prince what you’re goin’ by nowadays, Pete? I like it. Got a nice pretentious ring to it, huh?” 

Peter raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, holding back his own cheeky grin. “Well if I’m the Star Prince and you’re freakily bonded to me, guess what that makes you?”

“Don’t you fuckin’ say it, you little shit,” Yondu snapped, his grin slipping to make way for a narrow eyed glare. 

Peter smirked. “What? It’s got a nice pretentious ring to it.”

“Don’t you dare.” 

“But I like it.” 

“I’ll kill you.” 

“Aw, don’t be like that Star Princess,” Peter chuckled, jumping back when Yondu took a swipe at him, and suddenly Peter felt lighter, more normal than he had in weeks. Months, if he were being honest. He missed this easy comraderie they’d built over the years, the playful banter and mock fighting. 

As they bickered Troy sidled up next to Kraglin, who was busy ignoring them and picking at his teeth. “That was the quickest change in mood I think I’ve ever seen,” he said, watching as Yondu grabbed Peter by the neck and tried to get a swat in. Peter slithered out of his grasp and swatted the captain’s backside with a laugh. 

Kraglin looked up for just a second and snorted before rolling his eyes and going back to what he was doing. “Them two’ve got a real fuckin’ weird relationship goin’. It’s always been like that. They fight like they’s gonna kill each other one second and the next they’re workin’ together like nothin’ ever happened. Cap’s always favored Pete, too. S’why I called the little shit when Yondu got into the flower in the first place.” He propped his feet up on the dash, years of practice assuring that he didn’t hit any important buttons. “Few months back after one of their stupid ass fights Peter betrayed us all, took a high payoff job from us and nearly got everyone killed in the process. It was a goddamn mess, but when the Cap finally caught him what did he do? Fuckin’ risked the whole crew to help him take on Ronan the goddamn Accuser, the guy he’d pissed off by taking the job from us.” 

Troy raised a thoughtful eyebrow, humming in lieu of an answer. Yondu had finally gotten ahold of Peter and was busy trying to wrestle the hulking Terran to the ground. He’d assumed that Yondu and Peter actually hated each other, which made the incredibly strong bond that had formed all the more perplexing. He wondered, though, now that he’d heard what the strange skinny little pilot had to say, whether there was any real animosity between them at all. He’d have to observe their interactions more closely from now on to find out. 

Peter elbowed Yondu in the side just hard enough to loosen his grip and shimmied out from between the Captain’s arms. Before he could launch a counter attack, the screen flickered back into view and the Centaurian was back. 

“We cannot allow off worlders onto our soil without due cause at this time,” he said, rubbing idly at his temples. “However, we will send a physician to meet you at the dock. She will assess the situation, and should it be deemed necessary we will allow you to disembark and seek the specialized assistance you require.” 

Peter, who had been ready to fight, deflated at the admittedly reasonable offer. Before he could answer Troy stepped in front of him once more. “Thank you for your consideration. We appreciate your assistance.” 

The man bowed his head slightly to the side and the screen went blank once more, and the cockpit was left in silence. 

Peter huffed out a sigh and leaned against Kraglin’s chair to watch through the viewscreen as they made their way closer to the planet. “I really don’t like that guy.” 

Troy came up next to him, making sure that there was a respectful distance between them with a weary glance towards Yondu. “Centaurian’s a notoriously xenophobic as a culture. Ever since the first contact it’s been nigh impossible to get on planet with them, which is why the information we have is so lacking.” 

Peter raised an eyebrow at the other man. He knew Troy was into this type of thing, but he’d never really considered that he might be tagging along for more than just selfless reasons. “Careful, your nerd is showing.”

Troy rolled his eyes, not bothering to turn away from the viewscreen. “I’m an  _ anthropologist _ . This is what I live for.” 

Peter snorted and turned to watch as they entered the planet’s atmosphere. What he could see of the land as they made their way in was very very green. “Nerd.” 

Before Troy could reply again Yondu shoved his way into the small space between them, shoving Troy out of the way and pressing his arm against Peter’s. Troy took the hint and went to sit in the copilot’s seat, and Peter decided that he was too tired to fight his body’s reaction to Yondu’s closeness and pressed himself firmly against the captain as they watched the land draw closer and closer.


	9. Sober Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, woo! The points I already have worked out came about in this chapter so it was wildly easier to write! Enjoy, and don't forget to tell me what you think <3

The physician was a presumably middle aged woman, with dark blue skin and a short elegant crest that swooped back from her forehead. The crests were not, as Peter had first thought, feathered. What had given it the appearance of being so was the swirling rivets in each side of it, something that Peter guessed came naturally but which looked almost like a tattoo.

She didn't pay any mind to anyone on the ship but Yondu, eyes skating over the others in the room as if they weren't there at all. Peter's lip curled back in irritation at being so blatantly dismissed, and it was only Troy's gentle hand on his forearm that kept him from giving her something to look at.

“You are Yondu Udonta?” she asked, and Peter didn't miss the way that her eyes lingered on Yondu's fin for longer than was strictly necessary. He bristled, and it wasn't the bond that made him want to kick her in the teeth for it but a defensiveness he'd always had when it came to how he viewed his captain - the same defensiveness that made him beat another Ravager to within an inch of his life for saying that Yondu was a disgrace all those months ago.

“You see another blue guy on this ship lady?” Yondu asked haughtily with a hiked brow.

She ignored his snark and glanced down at her clipboard. “Is there a room we can go to so I can conduct my research with you in private?”

“Hey, wait a second! I'm involved in this too,” Peter snapped, stepping forward.

The woman turned to him with an unimpressed tilt of her head. “You are Terran yes? I'm afraid that your inferior intellect and psi null nature would make you not only useless in the situation but, dare I say, a hindrance to the proceedings.”

Peter gaped, too furious to honestly reply and Yondu snorted.

“Well you're a fuckin’ delight, aren't you?” Yondu asked the physician, turning his head and rolling his shoulders to give his neck a crack. “Knew I'd hate this goddamn place. Sanctimonious buncha asshats.” He jerked his head behind him to indicate that she should follow and without another word to anyone else they left the room.

“Need some ice for that there burn, Pete?” Kraglin asked, snickering, and Peter turned to kick him none too gently in his bony shin.

“I did warn you that these people are notorious for the xenophobia,” Troy offered as Kraglin yelped and grabbed his injured leg.

Peter turned to see the other man pulling his long hair back into its customary bun, an action which he realized at that moment he found strangely endearing and familiar. “Yeah, but jeez I didn't think they'd be _this_ bad.”

“I honestly didn't think so either,” Troy replied, picking a spare blaster up off the table and examining it as if he'd never seen one before. “I knew of their reputation, however I've found that more often than not rumors about an entire species are greatly exaggerated. Apparently these people are an exception to the rule.”

Peter snorted as Troy turned the blaster in his hands, holding it gingerly. “It's not gonna bite you.”

Troy glanced up and rolled his eyes before setting the weapon back where he had found it. “Some of us didn't grow up with a bunch of space pirates, thank you very much. I've never used a weapon before.”

That actually made a lot of sense, and the thought caused Peter to take a look at his life. He'd had a blaster in his hands by ten years old, and it just felt normal to him. His life was so filled with action and people who lived the same way that it had never occurred to him how different Troy was from that. “Well, everyone should know how to use a weapon.”

Kraglin snorted in amusement from his spot in the pilot chair. “Especially if you're gonna be around this jackass. Kid attracts more violence than anyone I've ever met, and that's seriously sayin’ somethin’ because I'm a damn Ravager.”

“Yeah, he actually has a point,” Peter said, smirking as he handed one of his own blasters to Troy and held his other one out. “Stop holding it like it's gonna explode. See this red switch right here?” He leaned down to point it out on the weapon Troy was holding. “That's the safety. As long as it's switched this way you can't hurt yourself with it. I mean don't go looking down the barrel and pulling the trigger, but it's called a safety switch for a reason.”

Troy hummed and grasped the weapon a little more firmly, finger on the trigger. Peter nudged that finger until the other man moved it off. “Don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to fire.”

“Yes sir,” Troy quipped looking up and catching Peter's eye with a smirk.

Peter's grin back was his customary flirtatious one, the one he'd used to pick Troy up in the first place, and he realized with a start that even though his bond with Yondu was fixed there was still a part of him fighting for dominance that wanted to lean down and plant a kiss on Troy's soft lips. That shot down Troy's theory that Peter's desire for him was a result of the tampered with bond at least.

“Don't even think about it,” Troy said, that same tone he'd used at every single one of Peter's visits when Peter got this same look in his eye.  

Peter laughed and was just leaning down to tease the other man when the door to the cockpit swooshed open and Yondu and the doctor came striding in. He felt Yondu's spike of jealously a split second before he stood back up and turned to catch the captain’s flashing gaze.

“This problem is beyond my area of expertise. I'll be sending a mind healer this way in approximately forty-five minutes,” the doctor said before nodding at Yondu and leveling an admittedly more curious than before gaze at Peter and exiting the ship.

Peter frowned as he watched her retreat. “What - “

“Come with me, jackass. I got a bone to pick with you,” Yondu bit out from between clenched teeth, not even bothering to see if Peter was actually following before turning and leaving the room.

Peter sighed and put his blasters back in their holsters before following Yondu out, and he didn't need to see him to know that he was on his way to his room. Despite the situation and Yondu’s obvious ire, Peter felt warmth pooling low in his belly at the thought of being alone with the captain and a bed again. He'd love to say that it was just the bond talking, but honestly he had a voracious sexual appetite and he was learning very quickly that Yondu was an absolutely filthy bed partner. If he wasn't careful and didn't keep reminding himself that Yondu was going to kick him to the curb when this was all said and done he was going to become addicted to those flexible legs and nipping teeth.

The door swished shut behind him and he didn't even get the chance to take a step into the room before there was a fist flying at his face. He dodged, ducking beneath Yondu's arm and shoulder checking him in the chest. Yondu grunted and grabbed a handful of Peter's hair, but the bond wouldn't let him actually hurt his mate so when Peter's head was yanked back and his throat was bared all it served to do was send a spike of arousal through him.

Yondu huffed out a breath as Peter jabbed him in the stomach with his elbow, and Peter used the captain’s distraction to swipe his feet out from under him. “I'm all for the rough foreplay, but we're kinda waiting on a doctor here so,” Peter said as he rolled them so he could straddle Yondu's hips. He didn't feel angry as he had the last few times they'd fought, and he realized with a start that it was because Yondu wasn't _angry_ this time but _possessive._ The taste was different, less cloying, more heady, and Peter was incapable of dredging up any frustration with that delicious feeling of being wanted slithering through him.

Yondu didn't reply to his jab, but he did shove Peter off and scramble to his feet, panting. Peter let it happen when Yondu shoved him back into the wall, and before he could say a word there was a  pair of warm hands slithering beneath his jacket and a set of teeth nipping at his stubbled throat.

“So by ‘a bone to pick’ you actually meant my dick?” Peter asked, laughing breathily as he trailed his hands down Yondu's firm back.

“Why can't you just keep it in your goddamn pants until this is over?” Yondu growled into his throat, unzipping his jacket and pushing it roughly down his arms just far enough to trap them behind his back.

“Well, I mean I would but you're kinda busy getting it out of my pants as we speak so…” He tossed his head back to collide with the wall as Yondu dug his fingers into the V of his hips with undue force which nonetheless sent a shiver down Peter's spine.

“You know what I mean,” Yondu panted, running his rough tongue along Peter's collarbone. “That stupid jackass Troy. Just - “ he grunted when Peter rolled their hips firmly together, letting the captain know by the drag of his hard length down his thigh just how much he was enjoying his attention. “Just stop trying to get in his pants until this is all over because the damn bond is driving me fucking insane every time you're near him.”

Peter wiggled the rest of the way out of his jacket and unzipped Yondu's coat, using the momentum as he shoved it off of his shoulders to switch their positions. “Jealous?” he asked as he rucked up Yondu's shirt and dragged his blunt nails down the captains taught stomach.

“You know I am,” Yondu growled, taking the initiative and yanking his own shirt over his head. “You also know I can't help it, ya dick. What do you think this fucking bullshit bond would do to you if I was off trying to fuck Kraglin the past coupla months, huh?”

It was Peter's turn to growl as a wave of bitter jealousy roared up in him at the image that brought to mind. He shoved Yondu harder into the wall and pressed their foreheads firmly together. “How do I know you weren't?”

Yondu's cheeks were flushed purple and his eyes were beginning to glaze over with arousal. “Youda felt it, wouldn't you? Like I did.”

“No,” Peter said, reaching between them to undo Yondu's pants. He groaned as his hand came into contact with the sopping material of the captain’s underthings and he knew without a doubt that he now had a thing for self lubrication. There was something so heady about being able to feel the evidence of his partners arousal in so visceral a manner. He couldn't form a coherent enough thought after that to continue the conversation so instead he busied himself with stroking Yondu's sticky-slick length, trailing nipping kissed up his neck and jaw as Yondu unbuttoned Peter's pants and shoved them down his hips.

Peter followed suit and before long he was walking a very naked Yondu back towards the bed, panting into all that blue flesh as he gathered up the moisture dripping from his dick. Yondu fell back onto the bed with an ‘oomph’ and Peter wasted no time spreading his thick thighs and probing at his entrance with a slick finger. Yondu did not, it turned out, lubricate from both ends at all times but there was enough dripping off of his throbbing cock to compensate and Peter relished the preparation.

“More,” Yondu grunted, bearing down on Peter's two fingers with gusto.

Peter was happy to oblige, wiggling in a third finger to go with the others and twisting them inside the captains clenching hole. He was so turned on it was dizzying, and he realized with a start that he was grinding himself on one of Yondu's legs, absolutely desperate for some kind of friction.

“I ain't a goddamn flower, Pete, Christ!” Yondu hissed suddenly, reaching down to shove Peter's fingers out and then grasping Peter's hips to pull him closer. “Fuck me already. I like a little burn.”

Peter let out a breathy laugh and brought his hand up to suck the leftover moisture off of his fingers, eyes fluttering shut at the sound of Yondu’s involuntary moan as the captain watched. He pulled his fingers out of his mouth with a filthy pop and a leer before hiking one of Yondu's legs over his shoulder and enthusiastically obeying his captain’s command.

Yondu huffed out a breathy grunt as Peter slid home and Peter couldn't help the way he leaned down in an effort to capture those enticing blue lips. As he'd half known would happen, however, Yondu turned his head to the side before Peter could make contact and Peter was left trying to ignore the sting of that rejection. He'd had his suspicions that Yondu was intentionally avoiding the inherent intimacy of kissing but it still hurt a bit to have the theory confirmed.

Instead of revealing his vulnerability he set to making sure Yondu couldn't forget who had been inside him for the foreseeable future. He pulled himself out despite Yondu’s protests and flipped him bodily over, digging his nails into Yondu's hips as he pulled them into the air and slid back inside with the same motion.

“Oh, fuck Pete,” Yondu panted into the furs, fists clenching as Peter pushed into him hard enough to make the sturdy metal bed creak.

Peter shoved a hand between Yondu's shoulder blades to force a more extreme angle and moaned as he hit that spot inside the captain that made him keen.

Yondu writhed on the bed, just as vocal as Peter remembered, his filthy words driving Peter absolutely wild. “Fuck! Give it to me, sweetheart. Just like that - just - so fucking good.”

Peter leaned down to suck a hickey into the flesh of Yondu's back, hips rolling, and he was deep enough that he knew he was just rolling over that sweet spot over and over again and Jesus fucking Christ the noises Yondu was making were going to haunt his dreams. He finished his third mark and knew he needed more, so he wrapped his arms around Yondu's chest and pulled until the captain was sitting on his spread thighs.

The captain groaned as Peter wrapped one hand around his sopping prick and brought the other down to massage that sweet spot between his balls and hole. He was putting all of his moves to work here but the captain wouldn't kiss him and he knew what that meant and despite the fact that he also knew it was very likely just the bond speaking he wanted to leaving a goddamn lasting impression, wanted to ruin this for anyone but him, wanted the captain to remember him the next time he tried to be with someone else and found them lacking.

He felt Yondu's hips start to stutter with his impending release and before he knew what he was doing he had sunk his teeth into that scar he'd left on Yondu's shoulder, the one that matched his own. His own orgasm overtook him like a tidal wave, and as Yondu's release spurted out over his fist he closed his eyes against the stars he was seeing and rode their shared completion out with a few more thrusts of his hips.

Peter gingerly pulled himself out of Yondu and collapsed onto the bed, dragging the captain with him and pressing his sweaty chest against Yondu's heaving back. It was nice, having Yondu so close, the bond purring in contentment, but it wasn't even a whole minute before Yondu was pulling himself out of bed. Peter let him go, unwilling to admit how bereft it left him, and watched as he disappeared into the fresher to get cleaned up.

The door shut and Peter dropped back into the furs with a sigh.

“It's just the bond,” he mumbled to himself, scrubbing a hand over his cheek as he heard the shower turn on.

He rose with a groan and wandered over to hop into the shower, Yondu's intimacy issues be damned. Yondu glanced up as Peter entered but it only took a gentle nudge to make him budge over and make room for the Terran beneath the hot spray.

“Not that Troy and I actually fucked, but you never would have felt it if we did because you blocked off the bond,” Peter ventured once the silence had stretched into uncomfortable territory.

“I felt him touching it,” Yondu replied, rubbing the skin around his fin with soap.

“Yeah, he explained that to me. You can block yourself from feeling the imperatives of the bond, like the need to settle down or the need to take care of me, and you can block yourself from feeling my emotions but you can't block the actual mental presence of the bond because it's in you.” Peter resisted the urge to start scrubbing down the captain’s back and used the lathered soap to wash his own front instead. “Or something like that, I don't know. It's complicated.”

“So you could feel me but I couldn't feel you?”

Peter paused and frowned. “Kind of? I mean I could only feel really strong emotions. Mostly anger. You're pretty angry, by the way. Like all the time. Anyway, Troy said I'm psi null so I couldn't feel everything you were feeling, but unfortunately I can’t block the bond’s imperatives either. That’s why I got so sick, I guess, why I had to make Troy go in and block of the bond in the first place. We weren’t fucking when you felt that. He was just helping me be normal for a while.”

Yondu turned to look at him for the first time since Peter had first entered the shower, frowning. “What do you mean you got sick?”

Peter shucked the soapy water out of his hair and wiped down his eyes before facing the captain with an incredulous frown. “I mean I got sick. I mean I couldn’t sleep, could barely eat, and got hurt on the job so many times that the other Guardians and I broke off. You knew I was sick, didn’t you?”

“Bullshit,” Yondu snapped, and Peter was taken aback by the venom in his tone. “Don’t lie to me. You weren’t sick, you just couldn’t keep it in your pants.”

Peter snorted and rolled his eyes, for once not rising to Yondu’s temper. He felt far too content and satiated to let it sour his mood, so instead of a reply he just shrugged and stepped out of the shower. Before Yondu could get another word in he was in the bedroom scrubbing his hair down with a towel. He dressed quickly and made his way back to the bridge, ignoring Kraglin and Troy’s stares as he settled himself in a chair and pulled his pad over to start scrolling through his messages.

To his surprise, he had no less than five messages from the Guardians. He was seconds from opening one when the door to the cockpit opened and another Centaurian walked in. This one was wildly different from the other two, despite having a similarly athletic build and the same skin tone. For one thing, as his eyes slid around the room he absolutely did not skip over Peter or the others. In fact, his gaze seemed to light up in excitement as it landed on each of them in turn. Another difference was his crest, which was absolutely massive but also didn’t stick straight up from his head like the others’. Instead, it darted up from his forehead before curling elegantly over and laying on its side. He was wearing long dark brown robes and his ears were both covered in golden hoops like the ones Yondu wore in his own ears.

“Hello there!” he said, his tone unmistakably excited as he crossed the room and grabbed Peter’s hand in a firm shake. “I’ve never met a Terran before! Oh, this is so exciting. I have so many questions!”

Peter turned to the others and saw his own bemused stare reflected back at him on their faces.

“Oh, I’m sorry. How rude of me!” the Centaurian gasped suddenly. “My name is Chidii. What’s yours?”

“I - Peter. My name is Peter.” He turned to point at the others in turn. “That’s Troy and Kraglin.”

They all turned as one as the door swooshed open and Yondu came storming in, Peter’s name dying on his lips as he saw the Centaurian who was still holding Peter’s hand. “Who the fuck’re you?”

Chidii dropped Peter’s hand and held his own up in a gesture of friendly surrender. “You must be Yondu. My name is Chidii, and I’m the mind healer your physician sent for.”

Yondu was still bristling, looking at Chidii’s hands as if he wanted to cut them off. Far from being intimidated, Chidii instead turned his head to the side to bare his long neck and said, “I hold no designs on your mate, friend. Peace.”

“Oh!” Troy exclaimed as Yondu visibly unclenched. “Wonderful! That was a perfect projection. Are you an empath too?”

“I am Habaktu - follower of the Circle of Life,” Chidii replied with a bow, turning from Yondu now that he was apparently calm. “I am simply in tune with my spiritual surroundings, and thus able to see and sometimes manipulate emotional auras.”

Yondu snorted and rolled his eyes, obviously skeptical even though there was clear proof of the guy’s claims in how calm he suddenly was. “Well, whatever you are let’s get this shit outta the way so we can all move on with our damn lives.”

Chidii bowed again. “Let us retire to another room so that I can conduct my examinations. Peter too, of course.”

Peter followed the Centaurians out of the room with a raised brow, rexamining his initial estimation of Centaurians as a whole.

\------

Yondu

Yondu brought the fucking fruitcake in the dress to one of their meeting rooms, where he sat down as far as he possibly could from his Terran. He was uncomfortable with how guilty he had felt when Peter told him how his rejection of the bond had been affecting him, and clinging heartily to his own denial. The further he was from the Terran the easier it was to ignore the bond’s urgings, he’d found, so even though he knew it was pointless because they were on the same ship he was doing his damndest to keep his distance.

“So, what seems to be the problem gentlemen? Your auras are… well, I’ll let you explain first,” Chidii began, crossing his hands serenely on top of the table.

“Yondu got a hold of a mating flower from your planet, and his first mate called me for help,” Peter began before Yondu could get a word in. “Apparently he was killing people so, you know, it was a bit of a desperate situation. Anyway, I came, we fought, we fucked, and now we’re apparently - ugh - _bonded_ and we need help breaking it."

Chidii’s eyes were almost comically wide as he glanced from one of them to another. “You - you have a _mating flower_?” he asked, breathless.

Peter glanced at Yondu and Yondu shrugged. “Yes? I mean, I know you guys are weird and secretive about your planet but it’s not like we stole it. The collector probably did, but we just kinda happened upon it so..”

“I don’t care where you got it! This is incredible,” Chidii gasped, clapping his hands together. “We haven’t seen an actual making flower in hundreds of years!”

“But wait,” Peter broke in. “I read that you guys don’t, you know, become intimate if not for the flower? How are you still around if you lost the flowers?”

“Oh, I guess the information you have on us might be a little off,” Chidii said, laughing. “A thousand years or so ago we were all living as Habaktu, living off the land we were connected to, a warrior people. It is true that then we did not form intimate relationships and reproduction became a problem; however, we were visited by a species from another planet and it opened our eyes. Well, some of us anyway.”

“And your point is?” Yondu asked, irritated with the history lesson, completely uninterested in learning about the people who sold him off as a fucking baby slave.

“Well, we broke off. The Akuuns, those who live here on Akuunos, they began to reach out and travel, to advance. They developed a new empathy, a new way of life and although they don’t mate as other species do they no longer needed the flower to accomplish it. Instead they are bonded at birth with a compatible person, and when they come of age they are fully mated. Much less bloody and violent.” He settled back in his chair and Yondu’s eye twitched in irritation. “The others are the Habaktu. They stayed in the wilds, lived their lives in the traditional ways. They still use the mating flower, but they view those of us who live here as traitors to our species and so guard the plant against us unworthies.”

“You said you were Habaktu,” Peter said, clearly confused.

“I am, though I was born here. You see, I’m an ambassador of sorts. I follow the Circle of Life, but I live a modern life. I spend time traveling between here and the tribes of the Habaktu in hopes of eventually reuniting my people.”

Yondu was absolutely done with the history lesson, and leaned forward to grab Chidii’s attention. “That’s fascinating and all, but we’re here to get this shit broken, not to learn about it. So if we could skip the history and move on to the fixin’ this’ll end in a lot less violence.”

“Don’t be a dick, Yondu,” Peter sighed, rolling his eyes. Yondu could feel his irritation filtering through the bond, could taste the rejection Peter was trying to hide every time Yondu mentioned breaking the bond. He didn’t know what the idiot was thinking - he wanted it gone too, why the hell was he hurt when Yondu mentione doing it? Probably a weird emotional affect of the bond itself - yet another reason to get it taken back.

“No, no, he’s right,” Chidii said, settling his hands back on the table. “You didn't come here for this. Now, the flower does explain the connection between the two of you, but… well I've never seen a bonded couple with auras like yours. Is there something you're leaving out? Were you involved before the mating? Your auras are… I wish I could show you. They're choppy and restless, and it's almost like they're reaching for each other but unable to connect.”

“And that's.. what? Not normal?” Peter asked, and Chidii glanced above his head at apparently thin air for a moment, thoughtful.

“Usually when two people are bonded their auras become one. They're peaceful, for lack of a better word. Working in harmony, in sync,” Chidii said, still watching Peter's aura. “What's different about you?”

Yondu turned away because he knew what Peter was going to say before the words had formed and he didn't want to let the guilt slither in. Peter was _lying_ obviously. There was no way that he'd been so sick he'd almost _died_ as a result of Yondu rejecting the bond. Yondu had been fine, after all.

“We didn't really know what we were getting into, and after the pollen wore off we - er - I left,” Peter said, and Yondu turned to him with a raised brow because there was a hell of a lot left out in that story.

Chidii glanced shrewdly at Yondu and then back to Peter. “I see,” he said, and Yondu got the itchy feeling that he _saw_ more than he let on. “Peter, I'd like to conduct a few experiments with each of you separately. Can I ask you to wait for us back with your friends?”

Peter glanced at Yondu, and Yondu knew without the bond’s probing that he was waiting for a signal that Yondu felt okay with him leaving. Yondu raised both brows and turned his head to the left, a signal they'd used on jobs before. Peter eyed Chidii for a moment, then shrugged and left the room without a word.

When the door shut behind him Chidii turned to Yondu with his head cocked to the side. “You rejected the bond, didn't you?”

Yondu sniffed and crossed his arms, kicking his legs up on the table in lieu of an answer.

“Mr. Udonta, I'm not here to chastise you,” Chidii said, leaning back in his chair. “I know you don't understand your heritage, that you didn't grow up here. The way you speak, your profession, your eclectic crew on this ship… it's not your fault that you didn't know what would happen to your mate if you rejected it.”

“Stop _calling_ him that!” Yondu snapped, slamming his fist on the table. Chidii didn't so much as bat an eyelash at the sudden outburst. “I don't have a goddamn mate!”

Yondu felt the bond pulsing at him as if to remind him that he was, in fact, deep in denial and fought to ignore it.

“Oh, interesting,” Chidii exclaimed, leaning forward in his seat and reaching out to something Yondu couldn't see. “You're doing it now.” He pulled his hand back and met Yondu's gaze with a frown. “Yondu, you need to stop.”

“Stop what? I ain't doin’ nothin’,” Yondu sniffed, turning away from that shrewd gaze.

“I'm going to be frank with you here,” Chidii sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Every time you lock things down like that, you not only wound your bond, but you hurt Peter.”

Yondu couldn't help the way his head whipped around to glance at the doctor, who was still gazing piercingly in his direction.

“He's _human_ \- well, mostly anyway - but he can't block himself off from the bond like you can. By blocking off your end, you would have caused all of the urgings of the bond to turn his way. Unable to meet its needs, Peter would be sick and weak. The bond wants you to procreate, so it's supposed to settle you while you adjust to each other. His spirit fighting with the imperatives of the bond alone would make him weak enough but add the fact that his other half literally rejected him, that he’s the only one dealing with this mess? Peter's been in a lot of pain, Yondu, and every time you try and shut the bond down you hurt him more.”

“Peter’s _fine_ ,” Yondu huffed. “He's the same cocky infuriating giant idiot he's been his whole damn life.”

Chidii hummed, reaching up to stroke a finger over his crest. “Peter's likely very good at putting up a front, but I can see his aura. I can see how damaged it is. That friend of his, the empath, I bet he can feel it too. Your mate is likely very strong of spirit, but everyone has their limits. If you want to fix your bond you have to accept it first.”

Yondu tossed his hands up in frustration and stood to begin pacing, a wholly unfamiliar feeling of guilt eating away at his conscience. “I don't wanna _fix it_. We're here to break it!”

“You want to _break it?”_ Chidii gasped, pushing back from the table in apparent shock. “But it's - I mean, I know you can't see it but Yondu I've never - “

"We already told you we wanted to break it, ya fruitcake," Yondu snapped, his rapidly waning patience causing his fingers to twitch. 

"I mean I heard that but I didn't think you were serious!" Chidii exclaimed, and he was very clearly agitated. "Breaking a bond at all is nearly unheard of, but one like -" 

Yondu whistled once and his arrow was resting at the asshole’s throat. He was done with this emotional bullshit, over the voodoo and the completely unasked for glimpses into a culture he'd had ripped from him before he was old enough to walk. Chidii, for his part, appeared nervous for the first time since entering the ship and Yondu felt a savage sense of satisfaction in that.

“You have an arrow! Oh, wow, oh Anthos I know where you’re from!” Chidii gasped, and Yondu felt his lip raise in a snarl. “Look, okay, calm down. I can’t help you break this bond no matter what you do to me.”

“You’re not helping your goddamn case,” Yondu hissed, stepping closer.

“I’m sorry, but I only know how to help people fix their damaged bonds,” Chidii replied, his voice shaking ever so slightly. “But, if I’m right about where you’re from I know how to get you to someone who _can_ help you break it.”

Yondu huffed, smirking as he whistled his arrow back into its holster. A little show of force was always sure to get him his own way. “Now that’s more like it. Where do we need to go?”

Chidii breathed a sigh of relief, his body relaxing. “It’s going to take me some time to get you the proper permits, but I’ll explain when I come back. Just stay here. It’s going to be okay, but I need to go build the case to let you and Peter on planet.” He turned towards the door and before Yondu could protest he was halfway out it. He stopped and looked back, frowning. “In the meantime - and I can’t stress this enough - if you care about Peter at all you need to _stop fighting_ the bond.” He held up a hand to quiet Yondu’s protestations. “Both of you are going to benefit from it, I promise. And if you stop fighting it now it’s going to make it wildly less difficult to break when the time comes. If keeping your mate - possibly your friend - out of pain isn’t enough of an incentive for you please consider that at least. If your bond is this damaged when you try and break it it’s going to be incredibly difficult to do.”

As the door swished shut behind the other Centaurian Yondu turned to kick one of the metal chairs across the room, frustrated, confused, unwilling to examine the knotted mess of his own emotional state and the emotional state the bond was putting him in.


	10. World Gone Mad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is SO long! Sorry haha I got carried away. Thanks as always for your super encouraging reviews. Seriously wouldn't have the motivation to do this without you guys <3  
> I didn't proof read this, so I'm really sorry for that.

Troy glanced up as Peter made his way into the room again sans Yondu, his gaze questioning. Peter shrugged. “He said he wants to ‘conduct experiments’ on each of us separately. I dunno, but he's working on Yondu first. Where's Kraglin?” 

“I'm not sure. He said he'd be back later. Showering maybe?” Troy shrugged as Peter wandered over to sit in Kraglin’s vacated seat. “I don't know. He's an interesting person.” 

Peter snorted. “Yeah that's a damn understatement.” 

“You know him well, I presume?” Troy asked, clicking off the pad he'd had in his lap. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Peter replied. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I mean I'm not sure any Ravagers honestly  _ know  _ each other, but he did practically raise me so I guess I know him as well as I can.” 

“You've told me before that he raised you, but you look to be of a similar age. How did that work?” 

“Yondu picked me up on Terra when I was ten years old,” Peter sighed, thinking of his mother. He'd never stopped aching over her death, but it felt fresher now than it had in years and he thought again with a pang of his hometown, his upbringing. “He had too much to do as the captain of a ship, I guess, so he ordered Kraglin to look out for me. He was just sixteen himself at the time, still a kid too honestly. We were constantly at each other's throats. Pretty sure Yondu considered throwing us both out the airlock pretty often.” 

Troy seemed to weight his next words, brow furrowing as if he was worried about Peter's reaction. “So Yondu was like a father to both of you?” 

Peter barked out a surprised laugh at that. “You think Yondu was like a father to me and I went to help him with the flower  _ knowing  _ what it entailed? What kind of fucked up psyche do you think I have?” Troy opened his mouth to reply and Peter held up a hand to stop him. “You know what? Don’t answer that.” 

“Alright, I suppose that was kind of a dumb question,” Troy laughed. His gaze was soft when he leveled it at Peter, and Peter felt his own grin softening in turn. 

“Yondu wasn’t much older than Kraglin I don’t think,” Peter said. “From what I gathered from the crew he was only twenty when he got his command, maybe twenty-one of twenty-two when he picked me up. He was busy trying to keep his men in check. We looked up to him, I think, but he wasn’t close enough to be like a father.” 

“You seem close now,” Troy said. Then, when Peter raised an eyebrow at him instead of replying, “Bond notwithstanding, I mean. There’s obviously some history between the two of you, and it’s equally obvious that you’re close to each other from the way you interact when you’re not thinking about the tension the bond has created.” 

Yondu was irritated, suddenly, bordering on angry, and Peter tried not to let his focus wander towards the captain. 

“When I was twenty or so I fucked up a mission pretty royally,” Peter said, smirking at the memory. “I was more interested in getting into someone’s pants than I was on completing the job, and it ended up costing me the ship Yondu had let me use for the occasion.” 

“That sounds like the Peter I know,” Troy laughed, but his tone was unmistakably fond. 

“Anyway, Yondu kicked my ass and after that he didn’t give me any solo missions for like six years. Fucking frustrating.” Peter was grinning despite his words, and he missed the way Troy’s smile turned knowing. “Anyway, I was pretty much delegated the task of being Yondu’s sidekick all that time so he could assure that I didn’t fuck anything up again. You spend six years attached to a guy’s side, it’s hard not to get at least a little familiar with each other. We’ve always fought like cats and dogs, though, so I wouldn’t really call us ‘close’. I’m pretty sure that there have been some days where Yondu literally wanted to kill me.” 

“I somehow doubt that,” Troy said. Peter didn’t get a chance to reply before he changed the subject. “I wanted to talk to you about something.” 

“Alright, shoot.” Peter leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Earlier when you saved me from Yondu - thank you, by the way - I thought I felt something from you. A projection, maybe? Did you try and send something to Yondu through the bond?” 

Peter hummed, thinking back to the incident in question. “You know, come to think of it I’m pretty sure that I did.” 

_ “Please what, Pete?”  _ Yondu had asked, and Peter remembered the feeling that his plea had been pushed outward. 

“I thought so,” Troy said, nodding. “Peter, I think I was remiss when I insisted that you were psi null. I think you have some inherent abilities you just don’t know how to tap in to.” 

Peter blinked. “So, what, I’m psychic now?”

“That’s pretty doubtful,” Troy laughed. “But I think there’s some untapped potential in there. Might explain why the bond is so strong, actually. My species sometimes bonds with other races who are psi null and I’ve never seen it work quite like this. It’s more similar to when two of us mate within the species, but I just thought it was a Centaurian thing. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it’s this strong because you’re gifted with more than just that irritating charm.” 

“Oh, you know from experience that I’m gifted with more than just charm,” Peter smirked. “You’ve seen first hand what I can do with - “ 

“Alright, down boy,” Troy interrupted, eyes sparkling with mirth anyway. “Anyway, I can’t touch your mind right now because I honestly think your Centaurian will kill me, but if I’m right then I should be able to teach  _ you  _ how to work with the bond.” 

“I - “ 

Peter hissed at the sudden spike of anger he felt from Yondu, clutching his head and losing his train of thought. He could feel it when the captain started clamping down on his end of the bond, blocking it off again and weren’t they fucking past this shit yet?

“Peter?” Troy asked, jumping out of his chair and coming over to lay a hand on Peter’s jacket-clad arm. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah I’m good. Just Yondu being Yondu I guess,” he sighed, pressing his palm into his aching eye socket. 

The door to the cockpit swished open and Chidii scurried in, looking harried and excited. He paused when he saw Peter’s state, frowning. “I am sorry, Peter. I’m afraid that it’s my fault Yondu is pushing back at the bond right now. I told him some things I’m not sure he wanted to hear.” 

“It’s not your fault he’s a giant baby,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. 

“Right, like you’ve been handling all of this calmly and maturely,” Troy quipped, squeezing Peter’s arm to negate the harshness of his words. 

“Not to worry either way,” Chidii said, glancing at the exit. “I believe I have a solution to your problem. It’s going to take a bit to get the proper permits, but I’m going to go get the process started now and as soon as it’s done we can get you the help you need.” 

Peter fought off the pang of sadness at the mention of breaking the bond with what felt like a physical effort. He reminded himself that it was just said bond messing with his emotions, that he wanted this gone just as badly as Yondu did. Probably worse, honestly, since that fucker didn’t seem to be suffering much as a result of it.

“How long is a bit?” he asked. 

Chidii was already on his way out the door, but he called over his shoulder, “I’m not sure. Just hang tight!” 

Peter sat back in his chair, drained suddenly, that strength he’d found since they’d met up with the captain beginning to leave him again. Case in point - he needed this bond gone before Yondu’s inability to deal with the connection got him killed. 

“That guy is so weird,” he said. He could feel Troy’s gaze on him, assessing. 

“You’re very pale. Yondu is blocking his end again?” Troy asked at length. Even through his long sleeved shirt and leather jacket Peter could feel the other man’s fingers stroking his forearm and it was soothing. 

“Yeah, well, what else is new?” he sighed, reaching over with his other hand to place it on top of Troy’s. “I’m fine. Promise.” 

Troy chewed his lip, deliberating, before seemingly coming to a decision. “I can’t lock down your bond because Yondu will feel me touching it and I am pretty attached to my life, but … “ He trailed off for a moment, and then to Peter’s surprise laced their fingers together. “I might be able to help you get some sleep without him feeling it since he’s locking down his end.” 

Peter eyed their laced fingers, his lips curling into a lascivious smirk. “Help me sleep, huh?” 

Troy smiled back at him, head cocking to the side.

\------

“You know, when you said you could help me sleep I thought you meant something a little more physical,” Peter said, closing his eyes as Troy’s fingers stroked through his hair anyway. If he were being honest, that was a lie. Although he knew what a saucy little minx Troy could be and part of him absolutely wanted to get down and dirty with him again he knew the bond wouldn’t allow that lust to take hold now that he’d reunited with the captain, blocked or no. 

“Stop talking and close your eyes,” Troy said. There was a power radiating out from where his fingers stroked over Peter’s skin, a soothing calm feeling trailing along in their wake. 

Peter sighed, but did as instructed, his eyes slipping shut as he settled more comfortably back on his bed in the  _ Milano _ . He knew there were extra rooms on the quadrant of the  _ Eclector  _ Yondu had picked them up in, but his own ship was right there in the hangar and there was nothing quite like the feeling of his own furs. 

“I want you to think about your breathing,” Troy said. His voice was low, deep and soothing. “Don’t change anything about it, but concentrate on the way it feels filling up your lungs and pouring out through your nose, through your mouth.” 

If it weren’t for the soothing-calm feeling Troy was pushing into him through his still steadily stroking fingers Peter wasn’t sure he would have been able to do what the other man was asking. He was constantly restless, after all, full to bursting with energy, with the need to move. With Troy’s aid and a lot of willpower, though, he managed, his focus narrowing down to the ship’s cool air filter through his nose and into his lungs. 

“Good, Peter,” Troy praised in that same steady tone of voice. “Now think about the movement of your chest as your lungs fill with air, how it expands with each deep breath. When you’ve managed that, think about the way your body is being cradled by the furs, how they wrap around your neck, your back, your legs. Think about the blood rushing through your veins, pumping your heart, keeping you one with the world around you.” 

Peter did as instructed, becoming steadily aware of all of his parts, of the way his atoms connected with his clothes, his furs, his ship, with Troy’s still stroking fingers. He could feel his body relaxing in pieces, from his neck down to his shoulders, his back, his thighs, his calves. 

“Relax,” Troy soothed. “Imagine reaching into yourself, into your core. The bond is there. I want you to try and touch it.” 

Peter didn’t know how to describe what happened next, but it felt like Troy was inside him, guiding him towards what he wanted Peter to see without actually touching it himself. He saw it, though, the bond. It was glowing a bright blue the same shade as Yondu’s skin, a tether of light that was crackling with radioactive red lighting. It was restless, strong and wild. Completely out of his depth, he tried to reach out to touch it, brushing what he imagined were his mental fingers over it and physically shivering at the tingle it sent through him. 

“This is fucking weird,” Peter whispered, afraid that if he spoke to loud he’d break the spell.

“Good. Good job,” Troy whispered. Peter could still feel the other man’s fingers brushing through his hair but he could also still feel his presence in his mind. Turning from the glowing bond, he focused his attention on Troy’s presence. It was soft and white, warm but not hot, and Peter got the impression of steadiness, of peace. 

“Don’t focus on me,” Troy said when Peter had lingered too long. “Think about the bond and picture putting a barrier between you and it. When I did it I pictured building a wall, brick by brick until it was blocked off.” 

Peter turned away from Troy’s presence and focused on that vibrant tether again. He tried to picture what Troy had suggested, tried to think of a single brick materializing before him. Much as he tried, however, he found that he just couldn’t do it. Nothing he tried worked. He thought of a pane of glass instead of bricks, pictured an iron wall, a safe, a shield - he even tried picturing something dropping down on it to sever the end in his frustration. 

“Fuck!” he hissed, and suddenly he was out of that weird mental landscape and back in his own body. When he reached up to rub his temple he realized he’d been sweating as if the task had cost him a physical price. “I can’t. Damnit!” 

“That’s alright sweetheart,” Troy soothed, his lips quirking in a proud smile. “You’ve confirmed my suspicions and I know that you’ll be able to do this on your own with enough practice. I’m so impressed. Who knew Peter Quill had such hidden depths?” 

Peter felt Troy’s fingers trailing from his hair and down his jaw in a gesture he wasn’t sure the other man was aware of because of how deeply he seemed to be gazing into Peter’s eyes. Being as careful as possible so as not to dislodge that gentle hand, Peter pulled himself to his elbows so that his face was closer to Troy’s, noting the way the hand trailed down under his jaw and to the back of his neck. He felt it when Troy realized what was happening, when the other man’s smile slipped and the hand on his neck stilled its stroking. His plump orange bottom lip disappeared under his white teeth and Peter heard him swallow as he swayed so close their noses nearly brushed. 

“Peter … “ Troy breathed, eyes darting down to Peter’s lips and then back up to his eyes. 

“Hmm?” Peter hummed, gently dragging his fingers up Troy’s arm. The other man shuddered and Peter’s heart skipped a beat. 

“I - “ A deep, slightly shaky breath. “I should go.” 

“Don’t,” Peter soothed, leaning closer. 

It wasn’t Troy that stopped the kiss from happening, but Peter. As he closed the distance between them the hazy feeling of want was replaced with the sharp sting of  _ wrong _ . Suddenly Troy was too soft, too bright, his unmarred skin too smooth, too orange. Peter groaned as the mood was broken and dropped back onto the pillow, dislodging Troy’s hand from his neck. 

“See?” Troy asked, sitting back in the chair and running a shaky hand through his hair. “You don’t want me, Peter. I’ve been telling you that for months.” 

“That's bullshit and you know it,” Peter sighed. “There's something between us, Troy, freaky alien voodoo or no.”

Troy hummed, non-committal. “Maybe. If you do end up breaking the bond then perhaps we can test that theory.” 

“What the hell do you mean,  _ if  _ I break the bond?” Peter asked, eyebrow hiking up towards his hairline. 

“I mean exactly what it sounds like I mean,” Troy replied, patting Peter on the thigh as he pulled himself to his feet. “The heart’s a funny thing. Sometimes we don't even know our own.” 

Peter rolled his eyes. “Alright Confucius, whatever you say. Just remember I'm gonna come knockin once this shit is taken care of. Remember to eat your Wheaties. Gonna need your strength for what I've got planned.”

“I'll keep it in mind,” Troy said with a soft smile, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “Even though you can't lock down the bond, the meditation technique I just taught you should help you sleep.” 

Peter waved his hand dismissively towards the door. “Yeah, yeah. One with the world. Got it. Night night Troy.” 

“Goodnight sweetheart,” Troy replied as he made his way out the door. 

When it swished shut behind him Peter closed his eyes and sighed, reaching up to pillow his head with one of his arms. 

_ The heart’s a funny thing. Sometimes we don't even know our own.  _

He scoffed, closing his eyes. 

“My ass. What a fucking softie,” he grumbled into the darkness. 

\------

Peter gingerly made his way through the dark ship, taking extreme care to keep his footsteps as silent as possible. The others had been asleep for hours as far as he knew, but he also knew that Kraglin was an exceptionally light sleeper. He had spent a very long time as a kid learning how to sneak away from him. 

He'd tried probing end of the bond to see what Yondu was doing, but ever since Chidii’s private discussion with him Peter had been getting nothing from that end. Over the past few months he’d gotten pretty good at covering up how much it affected his mental state when Yondu blocked their connection, but he could admit to at least himself that it was different now that they were in such close proximity. All he could think about was sneaking into the captain's room and plastering himself to his side, doing literally anything he could to make the connection open again because he needed his mate, he did, he needed that connection. He'd tried sleeping, tried getting back to that place Troy had shown him and blocking the bond again but all he could do was toss and turn in frustration and he was damn exhausted. 

Peter jolted when he realized that he had turned and was suddenly walking towards Yondu's room for what had to be the tenth time since Yondu had blocked the bond off. He shook his head and turned away with an act of iron will, chastising himself once again for his weakness. 

A noise drew his attention, something like a soft footstep. He froze, cocking his head to the side to listen but heard nothing. So far so good. He hadn't heard anything more than the soothing white noise of the ship’s generators, and he was very nearly to the control room, where there was a hatch in the floor he could open much more silently than the main door. 

He grinned in triumph as he knelt down next to the hatch and pulled it open, popping his head out to make sure there were no guards around the dock. He'd been watching out the viewscreen for the past hour, trying to get a feel of the security rotation but as far as he could tell there honestly wasn't one at all. Which was damn weird considering how tightly these guys had their assholes clenched, honestly, and absolutely the reason he was sneaking out. It had nothing to do with putting distance between himself and the captain, nothing to do with needed to get some space before the bond made him do something truly embarrassing like beg him to stop keeping him out. 

He had just swung his legs out of the hatch and was getting ready to drop down when he heard the unmistakable clank of a boot behind him and a very familiar raspy chuckle. Peter sighed and closed his eyes, cursing his fucking luck. 

“Where d’ya think you're going, boy?” Yondu asked and Peter knew without looking that he had one hand on his hip, his coat pulled back to display his arrow. 

Peter turned his head and rolled his shoulder to ease some of his sudden tension before plastering on his biggest shit eating grin and turning to look up at his captain (who was absolutely standing exactly as Peter had known he would be). “Aw, you know. Stretch my legs, get some fresh air. Steal something maybe - wherever the night takes me I guess!” 

Yondu eyed him shrewdly, his smirk slipping. “You look like shit.” 

Peter turned away. He knew from his glance in the refresher mirror earlier that it was absolutely true. He was pale as hell, with dark circles under his eyes and a light sheen of sweat on his brow. It usually took a few days before the blocked off bond made him like this, but, again, proximity must be a factor. “You sure know how to make a guy feel special, Cap,” he quipped, tugging up the huge black hood of the coat he'd dug up. “Anyway, I'll be back in a couple of hours. I wanna see what they're all so secretive about, why they're so fucking weird about letting people on planet.” 

Yondu hummed but didn't say anything else, so Peter took it as his cue and hopped out of the hatch, landing in a slight crouch to save his knees from the impact. He jolted when he heard another person drop down beside him, groaning internally because goddammit he was supposed to be getting  _ distance  _ from the captain. 

“Hey, solo mission here man,” he whispered, glancing uneasily around to make sure there really was no one in the docking station. 

“Like hell,” Yondu laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. “I ain't letting you get into trouble on your own. Who's gonna pull your sorry ass out of it once you get in it?” 

Peter rolled his eyes towards the stars, frustrated because what was the damn point if he was not only not getting the distance he needed but actually getting  _ closer _ to the person he needed to escape? “I'm a big boy, Yondu, been taking care of myself and wiping my own ass for a few years now if you hadn't noticed.” 

He started walking towards the dock exit anyway, Yondu hot on his heels. 

“Is that right?” Yondu asked, sidling up close to him and Peter just knew he was grinning. “How ‘bout that time a few months back when you went off on your own and I had to come save your ass from all those bounty hunters?” 

Peter scoffed. “What, the Draconians? I totally had that shit handled.” 

Peter pushed open the dock doors, exasperated when his caution turned out to be for nothing - there wasn't a single damn employee around. These people had the  _ shittiest _ security. 

“Uh-huh, that's why you was tied up looking like you'd hit every branch of the ugly tree on the fall down,” Yondu snickered. 

“First of all, rude. The black eyes and split lip just made all of this sexier. People like the bad boy look, thank you very much.” He turned in the direction with the most lights, assuming that was the city. Maybe he could get a drink or something. “Second of all, how do you know that wasn't part of my plan?” 

He and Yondu bickered back and forth as they walked, and Peter fought to ignore the way his heart skipped when he caught Yondu watching him, or the way he kind of wanted to reach out and pull the other man into a rough kiss. Sex seemed to be the only way to get Yondu to stop blocking things off, and Peter very much wanted to see if he could prove that theory right. 

The streets were completely deserted, their pristine roads free of people, animals, debris, or even vehicles. Despite how frustrating Peter found most of the Centaurians he'd met (present company sure as hell included), he found that their city was pretty appealing aesthetically. The buildings were tall, spiral affairs with a lot of glass Peter imagined was dazzling in the sunlight, and there were trees absolutely everywhere. He made his way over to one he'd already seen a lot of and eyed its leaves, noting the massive white flowers drooping lazily from the branches. They smelled incredible, sweet and softly fragrant. Underneath its boughs was a tall lamp with a soft blue light nestled in what looked like roots at the top.

“You got a thing for flowers now? Want ol Yondu to pick you a bouquet?” Yondu asked from his place at Peter's shoulder and Peter snorted at the image of the cranky captain on bended knee with a bouquet of huge vibrant flowers. 

Peter shoved Yondu good naturedly with his shoulder and they moved on. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to stop and smell the flowers?” 

Yondu sniffed, thumbing his nose. “Nope. I’m allergic.” 

“Bullshit,” Peter laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners with his warm smile. “I  _ know  _ that’s a lie. You remember that time at Yarin? With those women who had vines and flowers instead of hair?” 

Yondu laughed too, tossing his arm affectionately over Peter’s shoulder. “Oh, yeah, I remember them girls. Hard to forget what they could do with them vines.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and Peter snorted, basking in the warmth radiating off of the captain’s body. 

They wandered like that until they came across a universal sight: the run-down facade of a seedy bar. Everywhere, no matter how tight-assed, had at least one and Peter and Yondu were experts at tracking them down. Peter turned to grin at Yondu before shrugging out from under his arm and opening the door, breathing in the scent of stale alcohol like it was a long awaited breath of fresh air. Yondu tugged Peter’s hood down further around his face to make sure no one could see his very not blue skin and they sauntered in.

Before they’d made it halfway to the bar Yondu stopped and nudged him in the side, jerking his head towards a group of people at one of the tall round tables. Peter turned and was more than a little surprised to see a group of non-Centaurians sitting around laughing and drinking in the dark corner. 

“Don’t allow non-Centaurians on planet during this season my fucking ass,” Peter griped, turning away from the table and stomping over to the bar. 

“Two of the strongest drinks you got,” Yondu barked at the bartender. 

“That’s great, but what’re you drinking?” Peter asked, leaning close so Yondu could hear him over the pulsing music. 

Yondu grinned at him, a genuine delighted smirk. “Alright, make it four.” 

When the bartender, a stout Centaurian with a short crest, turned to place their drinks in front of them he took one look at Peter and snorted. “You can take that stupid thing off. Dunno who you are, but s’long as you’re in here the Sentries can’t get you for curfew. You look fucking stupid.” 

Pater jabbed Yondu in the side with his elbow when the other man let out a raspy laugh, pushing the hood down with his other hand. The bartender had already turned away to help a couple of Draconians, and no one so much as looked Peter’s way as he clinked his glass with Yondu’s, tapped it on the bar and downed it in two gulps. 

He downed his second one in the same manner, and before Yondu had finished his first he had already ordered two more. 

“Keep drinking like that and I’m gonna be dragging your sorry ass home,” Yondu said, finishing off his first drink and picking up his second. “You tryna forget somethin’ or what, boy?”

“Can’t sleep, too tired to do anything else,” Peter said, taking a more natural sip of his third drink. “Might as well get shitfaced. Cheers.” 

“Peter fuckin’ Quill, the shithead who once slept through the  _ Eclector  _ getting raided, can’t sleep?” Yondu asked, clearly appalled. 

Peter sighed, unwilling to keep talking about this particular subject because, honestly, he was damn tired of fighting. “Happens to the best of us. Even legends like me,” he said, grinning cheekily at the captain and finishing off the third drink. He already felt that tell-tale tingle in his neck, spreading into his shoulders as the alcohol started doing its magic. 

They were quiet as Yondu finished his second drink and gestured for another, but he was thinking so hard Peter could practically feel the tension coming off of him. 

“Alright, spit it out,” he said at length, turning to Yondu and nudging him with his knee. “You’re gonna hurt yourself thinking so hard.” 

“Jackass,” Yondu laughed despite the insult. He sobered quickly though, opening his mouth to say something Peter suspected would be significantly less flippant, but was interrupted as the doors to the bar opened so hard they slammed against the walls. 

Four young Centaurians sauntered in, wearing the type of expression Peter liked to beat off of people. Conversation around the bar petered out and everyone watched as the new group made their way to the bar. 

“For the love of fucking Anthos,” the bartender mumbled under his breath as the group approached. “Just what we needed tonight.” 

“What’s a guy gotta do to get a drink in this cesspool?” One of the guys, the shortest, asked, his voice carrying throughout the room. 

The bartender clenched his jaw but moved to stand in front of the group. “What can I get you guys tonight?” 

“Ah, Garron,” the short guy said, grinning. “Still serving the detritus of Akuunos I see. Four beers.” 

Garron turned away to start pulling the beers from the tap and the short asshole turned to his group of friends. “I can’t believe they let these people live on our planet still. Should put them all out of their misery, keep our city pure.” 

Peter exchanged a look with Yondu, sipping his drink and trying not to draw attention to himself. That particular tactic never worked, and it wasn’t long before he heard one of the guys talking about him. 

“Is that… is that a fucking  _ Terran _ ?” one of the taller guys asked. “Gross! I didn’t know we had any of  _ those  _ on planet. Garron, you served him? You really have let this place go.” 

Yondu’s lip raised in a snarl and Peter kicked him in the leg to keep him quiet. He was all for a good bar fight usually, but they really did need to keep a low profile on this one. Weird group of off worlders or not, they themselves weren’t supposed to be traipsing around the planet yet. He didn’t want to get them thrown out before they were able to get fixed. 

“Never mind the Terran,” the short guy piped in, and suddenly he was right next to them, eyeing Yondu with very clear disgust. “What the fuck is this thing?” 

“Oh, he has a prosthetic crest?” one of the other guys asked, coming up next to the short guy. “How adorably pathetic.” 

Yondu tensed next to him and Peter’s own lip drew back in a snarl. He felt his pulse start to race and knew already that if this fucking piece of shit said one more thing there was no way they were going to be keeping a low profile. 

“Guys, come on, I don’t want any trouble in my bar,” Garron said, hand clenching on the counter. 

“You asked for trouble the second you decided to serve this piece of trash Terran and this fucking disgusting excuse for a Centaurian,” the short guy snapped. “Disgusting, pathetic waste of space. Should have killed him off when they took his crest.” 

That was it. Before anyone could utter another word Peter was out of his stool and his glass was shattering on the asshole’s temple. The guy have a shout of pain and Peter spun to take out another one of them at the same time Yondu punched his second square in the jaw. He must have jumped at the exact same time Peter had. 

“You’re gonna regret that, scum,” the short guy snarled, wiping blood off of his cheek. He wasn’t laughing anymore, but Peter - whose main talent was pissing people the fuck off with his shit eating grin - barked out a derisive laugh and braced himself for an attack. 

“Scum? You can’t think of anything better, short stuff?” he asked. 

The guy growled at him and launched himself forward at the same time one of the other guys picked himself up and swung his fist towards Peter’s face. Peter ducked the swing and felt Yondu’s fist fly over his head to hit the guy who’d tried to punch him, using his downward momentum to intercept Mighty Mouse. 

He used all of his weight to topple the guy, straddling his waist and beating him once in the face. The crack of his nose was very satisfying, but a second later a fist connected with Peter’s jaw and  _ damn  _ could these guys pack a fucking punch. He went flying, his back colliding with the bar and knocking the air out of his lungs but this was what he was good at. He was up in a second, crouching and wiping the blood off of his lip with a red-toothed grin. Yondu was bust wrestling one of the other guys, beating him to a bloody pulp, and Peter felt a heady satisfaction watching his captain dominate the fight. 

“You picked the wrong night, junior,” Peter said, and then he was on the guy again, bracing himself against the hits he couldn’t block. He got the upper hand quicker than he’d thought possible, grabbing the guy by his crest and slamming his face into the bar. 

“Asshole,” he hissed, spitting blood onto his prone form and looking around to see that Yondu had taken out two more of the guys. Yondu grinned at him, smearing the blood from the cut on his cheek. 

Peter frowned. “Hey, weren’t there four of them?” 

The door to the bar swung open again and Peter and Yondu turned as one to see at least eight guys in the doorway, including the guy who had been with the four in the first place. 

“Aw, hell,” Yondu groaned as Peter walked up next to him and pressed their shoulders together. 

“You take the left and I’ll take the right?” he asked, and Yondu smirked at him, familiar and open and everything Peter had missed about their fucking weird ass relationship from before the orb. 

The guys were on them in a hot second, fists flying, shouting every time Peter and Yondu go the upper hand. They were a force to be reckoned with, back to back as they fought off their attackers in perfect sync. Yondu ducked to knee a guy in the stomach and Peter elbowed the guy who had been swinging at him in the face. They clasped hands and spun each other around, each letting their boot fly into another man’s face and god damn this felt good. 

He turned to grin at Yondu, blood staining his teeth and dripping from a cut on his temple and this was just like old times. As they fought together in a synchronization borne of years of familiarity Peter felt Yondu's block on the bond crumbling. 

Worth it.

It wasn’t long before the other non Centaurians joined in on the fight, more Centaurian assholes showed up, and then it was fucking madness. Peter ever caught a glimpse of Garron taking on one of the Centaurians as he and Yondu slid over the bar and ducked down for a moment to catch their breath. 

Peter grinned as he caught Yondu’s eye, panting, and he knew his mouth was bloody and he knew Yondu wasn’t into this type of thing but before the captain could say anything he had lunged forward and  _ finally  _ locked lips with him. Yondu grunted against him as Peter straddled his lap and slipped his tongue inside his mouth. A second later there was a hand fisting in his hair but it wasn’t pulling him off. It was pulling him forward as Yondu’s lips slid against his, as the captain’s tongue darted out and lapped up the blood from his split lip. 

They pulled apart when a glass crashed over their heads and Peter pressed his forehead against the captain’s, sucking his lip between his teeth, half hard and panting. “We get outta this and I’m gonna suck you so good you’re gonna forget your own fucking name,” he groaned against Yondu’s lips, hips canting as the captain reached down to squeeze his firm ass through his tight leather pants. 

“Is that right? Why didn't you say so sooner?” Yondu grinned, leaning forward to nip Peter just this side of too hard on his bottom lip. 

He pulled back and pushed Peter off before pulling them both to their feet and letting out a sharp commanding whistle. As his arrow hovered between their pressed shoulders he sucked his teeth and cracked his neck. “Y’all better get runnin’,” he said, not yelling but his voice carried nonetheless. 

A couple people stopped to stare at his weapon, confirming Peter's suspicions that the arrow wasn't something most people had, but didn't move. 

Their mistake.

\------

Chidii pinched the bridge of his nose as he stood in the hallway between Peter and Yondu's cells, flanked on one side by Troy who at least looked amused. “So let me get this straight,” he sighed, looking first at Peter and then at Yondu. 

“I mean  _ straight  _ isn't the word I'd use but you do you,” Peter quipped, leaning against his bars with his arms poked through the holes and grinning at Yondu who was in an identical position across the way. 

They were a mess, bloody, bruised, kiss swollen lips and clothes in all sorts of disarray but Yondu had never looked as attractive to Peter as he did in that moment. 

“Not only did you ignore the instructions to stay on your ship,” Chidii started, ignoring Peter's comment. “But you incited a massive bar fight, and when you had the chance to escape you… you stopped in the alley to have sex?” 

Peter laughed, remembering how they authorities had come upon him just as Yondu had gripped his head and pushed himself to the back of his throat, coming with a jerk of his hips and a drawn out gravelly moan. 

“Just your regular Friday night,” Peter said, eyeing Yondu with a lascivious smirk. “I mean I think it's Friday. Is it? I always get the days mixed up on new planets.” 

“Think it's Wednesday,” Yondu said, and Chidii groaned. 

“This is no laughing matter! You're lucky that your paperwork had already been approved before this incident.” 

Their cells beeped in sync and the doors swung open. 

“As it is, we're going to have to leave within the next two hours - before the judge gets into work - or risk losing your visas before we can leave,” Chidii said, turning away and gesturing for them to follow him out. 

“I mean won't they just stop the transport?” Peter asked, shoving Yondu with his shoulder playfully as he passed him to catch up with the strangely silent Troy and Chidii. 

“There is no transport. We have to make the journey on foot,” Chidii said and Peter stopped walking. 

“Excuse me?” 

“We have to make the journey on foot. It takes about seven days to get there through the jungle so make sure you pack enough rations.” 

Peter glanced at Yondu who looked equally appalled, but Chidii had already left the room. 


	11. Carry Your Throne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Another chapter! Sorry they're so slow-going during the semester. Only six weeks left this semester though!! That's scary and awesome at the same time. As usual, your comments give me life and I'm so glad that people are still reading this. I love you all endlessly!

“We need to cross through here,” Chidii said, indicating a lit up path through the holographic map of the jungle they were all looking down at. 

“Looks like that there river leads straight to it,” Kraglin said, leaning over the table to get a closer look. “Why can’t we just follow it?” 

“The tribes in the area patrol that river.” Chidii pinched the map and it zoomed in on the roiling waters. “It’s broken up into territories, and each tribe uses their portion for fishing, hunting the animals that use the river to drink, gathering the edible plants near the river bank; the river is almost sacred to them, as it holds everything they need to survive. They don’t take kindly to outsiders trespassing upon it.” 

“I thought we wanted to find one of the tribes. Why would we avoid them then?” Troy asked. 

The impulse to beat the ever loving shit out of that fucker Troy was never far from Yondu’s surface, but whenever he opened his goddamn mouth the feeling increased tenfold. He couldn’t help picturing his filthy hands on Peter, his mouth, his stupid toned body pressed against Peter’s - 

Yondu forced his fingers to relax on his armrests, the tips peeling off of the leather where they’d stuck with the force of his grip. He would not let this thing control him. He glanced up and caught Peter staring at him, and tried not to let it affect him when his lips stretched in that big stupid toothy grin. 

“We do want to find one of the tribes, but we want a particular one.” Chidii moved the map towards the widest point of the river, where it looked like it dropped off into a massive lake. “I believe the tribe Yondu came from lies here. Attracting the attention of anyone else on our journey would be… unwise.” 

“I have another question,” Troy was saying, leaning forward in his seat. “You guys have a serious reputation for your security, and at first it seemed like it was warranted, but… Where’s the patrol in the hangar? Where was your military when Peter and Yondu traipsed off and went for a stroll through your supposedly secure streets?” 

Chidii sighed, rubbing his temples. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m pretty sure you’ve already figured it out so what the hell? It’s a front. We have to keep visitors away during certain seasons because we have next to no military forces, and those we do have leave for exploration purposes periodically. If anyone where to find out, we’d be a target. So we put up a front and keep outsiders away by a show of force which seems much more vicious than it is.” 

Peter, the shit, laughed. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! The big bad Centaurians are a bunch of goddamn Chihuahuas barking at the window?” 

“I don’t know what a chee-hwa-hwa is,” Chidii replied, frowning. “But I assume from your humor that it is not a formidable creature.” 

From the bond Yondu got an image of a small quadruped with a bulbous head and watery eyes, its high pitched yapping ringing out over a grassy, sun-soaked yard. He snorted at the image, at the last second turning it into a cough. He could tell by the warm taste of Peter’s pleasure with him that he hadn’t succeeded in hiding his amusement at the boy’s comparison. 

\------

Peter groaned for the fifteenth time that hour, wiping at the sweat dripping off of his brow and cursing the goddamn Centaurians and their stupid tropical climate. He’d long since shed his jacket, and if this heat kept up he was going to be buck ass naked before the day was out, modesty be damned. 

The only two out of their group who didn’t look soggy and exhausted from the climate were Yondu and Chidii, who were tromping right along in all of their clothes without a drop of sweat to be seen. Peter glared at their backs as he trudged behind them with Troy at his shoulder and Kraglin lagging behind, the worst off out of all of them. The humidity of the jungle seemed to be sapping his energy out at a startling rate, and he’d long since fallen completely silent as he struggled to keep up. 

“Alright back there, Krags? Need someone to carry you?” Peter called over his shoulder. Bored? Nag Kraglin. Cranky? Nag Kraglin. Walking through a shitty jungle in unbearably humid heat? Nag Kraglin. It was his favorite pastime, aside from raunchy sex with strangers of course. 

“Shut the fuck up, Pete,” Kraglin hissed, the venom in his voice giving Peter less pleasure than it should have. 

“You shouldn’t tease him so much,” Troy said, nudging Peter’s shoulder with his own with a little grin. 

Peter laughed. “He can handle it. Jackass taught me everything I know, after all.” 

They lapsed into an easy silence after that, trailing along behind the two Centaurians until the sun had begun to set. As the day went on, Peter felt a change in Yondu, a sort of weariness seeping through the bond which he was positive had nothing to do with their hike or the heat. 

Peter relished the coolness that came with the lowering sun, the way the breeze cooled his sweat soaked skin as the night air cleared out the damp heat of the day. Chidii stopped them in the middle of a clearing, where the moss and grass covering the jungle floor had been stamped down flat by repeated use. “This is our first stop,” he said, dropping his pack to the floor. 

“Thank fuck,” Peter groaned before dropping down into the damp moss with a groan. Troy fell much more gracefully down next to him and offered him a much needed drink out of his water bottle. Peter took it with a smile, ignoring the bitter flavor of Yondu’s distaste at his proximity to the other man. That, he was finding, was a very strange part about having both ends of the bond unblocked for so long. The longer time went on, the more aware he was of how Yondu was feeling, the more he could physically taste his stronger emotions. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kraglin drop to the ground and lay back, tossing an arm over his eyes with a groan.

Chidii sat down on a fallen log with a light weary sigh and started pulling things out of his pack, including a blanket and two pairs of what looked like flat cloth shoes with no soles. He slipped off his thicker boots and leaned over to slip them into the apparently hollow log he was sitting on, digging his blue sockless toes into the grass and moss with a relieved fluttering of his eyelids. 

Troy raised an eyebrow at Peter, who shrugged back and handed him the bottle. “I dunno, man, Centaurians are weird,” he whispered, earning a light chuckle and a fond wrinkling at the corners of Troy’s eyes. 

Their attention was drawn back to the other man when they heard him talking to Yondu, who Peter could tell was less than amused. 

“I brought you a pair, too,” Chidii was saying, offering a pair of dark red slipper things to the frowning captain. He had already donned his own eggplant purple pair. 

“I don’t want that shit,” Yondu growled, and Peter tasted loathing so cloying it nearly made him gag. He watched as Yondu leaned down to sneer in the other man’s face.  “The fuck do you think you are?” 

It was Peter’s turn to raise an eyebrow as he and Troy watched Chidii flounder for a response, clearly taken aback by the captain’s sudden ire. “I didn’t - I mean, I just thought you’d want them. Your shoes are so thick, how will you feel your way with them on?” 

“Like a goddamn normal person; with my fuckin’ eyes, ya damn fruitcake,” Yondu sneered, slapping the still offered slippers out of the other man’s hands before stomping off into the jungle. 

Peter was halfway to his feet before he knew what he was doing. He stopped at the feel of Troy’s gentle hand on his forearm, frowning at the captain’s rapidly retreating back. 

Troy tugged gently on his arm until he could tear his eyes away from the patch of trees Yondu had disappeared in. “Peter, I don’t know Yondu very well, but it seems to me that going after him now is only going to result in some form of violence.”

He was right, of course, but Peter still felt a nearly irresistible tug in his chest dragging him towards his captain. He sighed and scrubbed angrily at his still sweaty cheek. 

“Hey!” he called, snapping his fingers at the very confused Chidii until they locked eyes. “The fuck was that, man? It’s been like twenty seconds since we stopped and you already pissed him off? I thought  _ I  _ was good at pressing Yondu’s buttons.” 

“I didn’t mean to make him angry,” Chidii sighed, picking up the red slippers and placing them on the log next to him. “I just assumed he’d want the shoes from the Senkah - the outfit Habaktu wear - so that he could feel his way. You can’t feel anything through those thick rubber soles.” 

“What the fuck does that even mean, ‘feel his way’?” Peter asked, bristling for some reason he couldn’t pinpoint but toning his frustration down as Troy gently squeezed his knee. 

“Centaurians from Yondu’s tribe possess the inherent ability to see things which most beings can not,” Chidii said, slipping into lecture mode so quickly Peter wondered if he was perhaps a teacher. “They call it  _ the Way _ , and it allows them to become one with their surroundings. They could feel, for instance, if a predator was nearby, or if an animal was hurt. If they are touching the same ground as another being, they can feel that other being. It’s useful when travelling on foot, but the layer between skin and ground must be minimal. Yondu would feel nothing through the soles of his boots, so I thought he’d like something more conductive. I didn’t know it’d make him so angry.”

“Yeah, well, don’t beat yourself up too much. Yondu’s always angry,” Peter said, grinning. Inwardly he was thinking about how Yondu never spent more time than was absolutely necessary on-planet, about how he’d never seen him out of his layers of thick leather, his boots with the inch-thick soles. Was that why? Was it because Yondu couldn’t stand  _ feeling  _ everything? Was that the reason for Yondu’s slow building weariness throughout the day?

Chidii frowned at him. “Is that what you think?” 

Peter’s grin dropped and he stiffened at the implication that he didn’t know his captain. “It’s what I  _ know. _ ” 

“Chidii,” Troy said, shaking his head slightly at the other man. Chidii looked from one man to the other, taking in Peter’s stiff shoulders and Troy’s hand on his leather clad knee with a confused frown. It was silent but for Kraglin’s light snoring and the chirping of some insect in the distance.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” Chidii said, bowing his head to the side. 

Peter stood and Troy’s hand fell into the grass with a muffled thump. “I’m gonna go find him before he hurts himself or gets eaten by something or some other shit,” he mumbled, and then he was off in the direction his chest was tugging him in, leaving Troy alone in the grass with their packs and Chidii frowning after him. 

As he wandered he pulled a cube out of his pocket and turned it on, illuminating the dim jungle before him. It was made up of a bunch of tiny little lights, and he pulled them off intermittently and dropped them on the ground. The last thing they needed was to get lost in the jungle. He’d probably get eaten by some blue mutant panther or something in the middle of the night. 

He’d been wandering for quite some time (his cube was half gone) before he heard the sound of splashing water, and, curiosity getting the better of him, he turned away from the direction Yondu had wandered in to find the source of the noise. Peter wasn’t much one to stop and stare at the scenery, baring watching the stars in the middle of ship’s night when he couldn’t sleep, but when he found what he was looking for he couldn’t help but take a moment to breathe it in. 

The source of the noise was a rushing waterfall, which poured down off of a plant covered cliff into the clearest water Peter had ever seen. He could see straight down to the bottom of the little lake, could see the bright fish darting to and fro in the water, their scales sparking as they caught the dying light of the sun. All around the banks of the water were bright flowering plants, with vibrant leaves and flowers in every shade he could imagine. There were little light bugs floating lazily around, diving every once in a while into a flower and causing it to light up like a little lamp, but none of that was what made him stare. The truly spectacular part of the sight before him was the water itself. Wherever the surface was being disturbed the crystal clear water glowed a soft, ethereal blue. The entire waterfall was streaked with the color, and as it crashed into the lake it sent out ripples of color in every direction, rings and waves of that soft glowing blue petering off until they settled into stillness, only to be lit up again as the falls’ ripples reached the area once more. 

It was a stunning sight, and that was truly saying something because Peter had seen  _ so many  _ things while he traversed the far reaches of the universe. Rarely though did he see something so breathtaking, so pure in its beauty which had been unmolested by higher beings. 

Before he knew it he had stripped down the nothing but what his momma gave him and was slipping in, enjoying the sight of the cool water rippling around his body, making his chest and face glow blue with its light. He sighed in relief as he sunk in to his chin and tipped his head back, washing the grime of the day off in an unexpectedly refreshing and impromptu bath. He still felt that nagging tug towards his captain, but fuck he hadn’t known he needed this until it was happening. Besides, the tugging feeling was lessening as time went on, becoming less urgent with every passing second. He scrubbed at his skin everywhere he could reach, feeling his body relaxing as the sweat washed away into the depths. 

He was floating on his back, eyes closed, the sense of relief at being finally cool settled into his bones, when he became suddenly aware that he wasn’t alone. He let his feet sink and turned around, knowing who he’d find without having to see him. Yondu was standing on the bank of the river, watching him with a raised brow. 

Peter grinned and kicked his feet to stay afloat. “Water’s nice.” 

Yondu snorted. “Chu doin’ out here, boy?” 

“I was looking for you,” Peter said at length. There was a careful calm between them at the moment that wasn’t often present, and even though he didn’t know what had caused it he was afraid to disrupt it. 

“Don’t look like yer lookin’ for much in there to me,” Yondu said, but he was grinning, his sharp uneven teeth glinting in the reflection of the rippling water. The sun had completely set while Peter washed, but he could see Yondu clearly in the light from the falls and the bugs. 

“Found you, didn’t I?” He could feel hot arousal beginning to pool low in his belly, slow, steady, and all consuming as he stared into his captain’s eyes. He bit his lip and propelled himself closer to the shore. 

“Like hell you did,” Yondu said, toying with the top button on his vest absentmindedly, like he wasn’t quite aware he was doing it. The weird pull between them was affecting the captain, too, Peter could tell and it stoked the fire in him unexpectedly. 

“Why don’t you join me?” Peter said, his voice suddenly husky, his meaning unmistakable. 

Yondu licked his lips and popped the first two buttons on his vest, but made no other move. Images flashed through Peter’s mind, suddenly, of  _ teeth, and tongues, of shared breath and roving hands, of pushing, pushing, until Peter was insensate, until all he could say was Yondu’s name as Yondu pushed into him, rode him, sucked him down so far it felt like Yondu couldn’t breathe but -  _

Peter groaned aloud, the thought that those images were coming from Yondu enough to have him achingly hard. “Come on, baby,” he husked, running his hand lightly along his length and taking delight it the fact that he knew Yondu could see it through the crystal clear water. 

Yondu let out a shaky breath, and Peter knew he didn’t want his bare skin to touch the ground. He lowered his lashes and, acting on instinct, sent soothing feelings through the bond, imagined those feelings wrapping around Yondu and calming his nerves, settling that fear the captain would never admit to down to make way for arousal, for craving. He watched as it worked, as Yondu’s shoulders dropped, as he popped the remaining buttons on his vest and dropped it to the ground before moving onto the next item of clothing until he was finally, gloriously naked. The light from the waterfall reflected off his skin, a lighter blue that made him look like he was glowing, that accentuated the line of his defined pecs and the slightly less defined abs. 

Peter grinned as Yondu stepped into the water, sending out ripples of light and sending the gathering fish darting off into the depths. He subtly moved out further, though he could tell Yondu knew what he was doing. 

“Don’t try nothin’ cute, Pete,” Yondu said as he swimmed out after Peter. 

“Can’t help it,” Peter laughed, swimming further out despite his own arousal and the answering one he could see on Yondu. “I’m always cute.” 

Yondu’s growl sent a spike of want shuddering down Peter’s spine, and he let out a breath like he’d been punched in the stomach. As if unable to help it he pushed himself closer, closer, until his thighs brushed Yondu’s with every kick of his legs. Yondu’s tongue darted out to lick up the moisture gathered on his blue lips from the water, and Peter didn’t miss the way those startling red eyes dipped down to catch a glance of Peter’s involuntary mimicking of the action. Peter pushed until their chests were brushing, until they were breathing the same air and he could feel every puff of Yondu’s unsteady breathing brushing across his lips, his nose, his cheeks. Peter brought their faces closer, almost brushing their mouths together but resisting, relishing in the heat radiating off of the other man, relishing the way Yondu’s breath quickened further. 

He brought one of his hands up and ghosted it down Yondu’s throat before wrapping it lightly around the captain’s neck. With more effort than he wanted, but less than it would have taken him two days ago, he sent his own images washing down the bond, images of  _ waterfalls, of Yondu pressed against the floor while Peter pushed his tongue inside the captain, while Peter trailed hot burning kisses and bites down the column of Yondu’s throat, of Peter flipping Yondu over so he could push inside, of -  _

Yondu surged forward and Peter propelled himself back, laughing at Yondu’s frustration. They had both begun to pant with their want, and Peter knew the time for teasing was gone. With a toothy, promising grin he jerked his head in the direction of the waterfall and took off swimming without another word. He knew Yondu was close behind, and the feeling of being chased, of Yondu’s single-minded  _ want,  _ to reach him, to push him, to fuck him, set his pulse fluttering. 

It didn’t take them long to reach the falls, and Peter wasted no time Diving under the water and swimming through until he’d reached the other side of the rushing water. When he broke the surface he found exactly what he’d hoped for: a small inlet, the walls smoothed out by decades of dripping, rushing water, the floor covered in that same soft moss and grass back in the clearing. 

Yondu broke the surface of the water shortly after him and then there was no more time to take it in because Yondu had grabbed him and spun him around with a growl and Peter was groaning into Yondu’s open mouth. He grunted as Yondu pushed them back until Peter was pressed against the spot where the sand dropped off into the water, like the wall of a pool on Earth. The feeling of Yondu’s lips sliding against his was still so new that it still had that feeling of being forbidden and Peter relished in the thrill. 

“Fuck,” he groaned as Yondu pressed their bodies together, as the captain’s tongue slipped into his mouth and tangled together with his own. He ran his fingers down Yondu’s back, feeling the rough uneven map of his scars as he rolled his hips forward for some friction. “Yondu, god,  _ please _ .” 

Yondu’s eyelids fluttered at the plea, his breath stuttering on a groan, and it must have been the right thing for Peter to say because the next thing he knew Yondu had grabbed him by the hips and with a surge of strength had lifted him out of the water and deposited him into the sand. The desperation he felt as Yondu pulled his own body out of the water, droplets trailing down his body in a path Peter wanted to follow with his tongue, was not entirely the bond. Yondu straddled his hips and Peter grabbed onto Yondu’s own, forcing Yondu to roll forward, to press their lengths together as he fell forward and dug his teeth into Peter’s lower lip. 

“Pete,” Yondu groaned into Peter’s open mouth, and Peter knew it was half-pleasure, half- ache because of the way so much of his skin was touching the ground. Yondu’s vulnerability was new, left Peter feeling open and wanting and needy because who could say they’d seen the captain be anything but invulnerable? 

“Don’t worry, baby, I got you,” he groaned, and before Yondu could say a word Peter sat up, Yondu slipping down in his lap. Peter huffed out a breath as he grasped Yondu by the thighs and stood, carrying the captain over to the water-eroded wall and pressing him up against it before slotting their mouths together again. Chidii had said other things had to be touching the surfaces Yondu was touching. The floor must have extended out past into the rest of the jungle, but as far as Peter could tell there couldn’t be anything touching the walls of the little cave but them. 

Yondu’s relief was instant and palpable, and Peter gave himself a little mental pat on the back. He used one hand to reach down and grasp Yondu’s straining cock, moaning as that familiar slippery-wet feeling of Yondu’s slick slipped down his palm, between his fingers. 

“Fuck, I love how wet you get for me,” Peter groaned, and he had no filter now but it didn’t matter because Yondu’s groan as Peter sucked his own finger clean of slick was telling. 

“Wanna fuck you,” he breathed into Yondu’s mouth, taking a moment to gather some of the moisture from Yondu’s length before reaching back and circling Yondu’s hole with his wet fingers. “You want that?” He pressed the tip of his middle finger in, in until he breached into that overwhelming heat and Yondu groaned. 

“Don’t be a fuckin’ tease, boy, you better get on with it or I’m gonna beat the shit outta ya,” Yondu panted, digging his fingers into Peter’s hair and tugging until Peter grunted in pleasure. 

“Ooh, kinky,” Peter laughed, breathless. He pressed his open mouth close to Yondu’s as he pushed his finger the rest of the way in, enjoying the way their air mingled, the way their lips almost-but-not-quite touched. 

“More,” Yondu hissed, pushing down on Peter’s finger until Peter complied and added another slick digit. 

It was minutes before Yondu was demanding Peter stop, demanding the rest of him, and Peter was all too happy to comply because he’d been  _ aching  _ for this since the bar fight, since he’d felt Yondu’s cock sliding down his throat, since Yondu had fucked his mouth with wild abandon even as the authorities closed in around them. 

Yondu’s head dropped back into the wall with a  _ clink  _ of metal on stone as Peter lowered the captain onto his waiting slicked up length, and the raspy moan he let out did Peter in. Before he knew what was happening he was pounding into the captain with wild abandon, their moans mingling with the obscene sound of their flesh slapping together and echoing back at them even over the sound of the waterfall. He leaned down to lick from Yondu’s collar bone up to his ear, where he took the golden hoop into his mouth and sucked until Yondu’s breath stuttered. Yondu was moving himself, using the powerful thighs he had wrapped around Peter’s waist to raise himself and crash down to meet every one of Peter’s thrusts and, fuck, it was so good, so hot. Yondu was open to him in more than one way, unguarded as he hadn’t truly been since the first time Peter had come to him after he’d received Kraglin’s call.

Peter pulled back so he could watch Yondu for a moment, watch the water and sweat trickling down his heaving chest, the light from the falling roiling water reflecting off of his skin and smoothing his lines, gorgeous in his abandon, in his pleasure, and he knew in that moment that he desperately needed to begin treading carefully because, god, he wanted Yondu in that moment more than he thought was physically possible. 

Yondu’s orgasm crashed over him suddenly and without warning, and the combined feeling of his tight wet hole clenching around Peter and his hot seed streaking over his chest and chin sent Peter spiraling after him. They rested like that for who knew how long, Peter growing soft inside of Yondu as he pressed their foreheads together and locked eyes, both knowing that something fundamental had just changed between them but entirely unwilling to admit it out loud. 

\------

Peter frowned as he bent down and picked up one of his lights. He had far too few in his hand for how far they’d walked. He’d been sure to drop them as he went at intervals so that he could see the next one as he picked up the last, but as he looked ahead he noticed that he didn’t even see a faint glow from the next one in the line. Maybe an animal had gotten them?

Yondu trailed along behind him, uncharacteristically quiet as he had been since they’d begun their journey. He was deep in thought, Peter knew, but he afforded Yondu the privacy he deserved and didn’t try to pry aloud nor through the bond. 

“You think some kind of animal would pick up the lights?” he asked aloud as he picked up the next one in the trail. 

“Dunno. Probably,” Yondu grunted, glancing out into the dark jungle. “Who knows what kinda weird shit they got on this planet.” 

By the time they reached camp Peter had half the amount of lights in his cube than he’d started with. He frowned as he clicked off the light and stored the cube back in his pack. Everyone else was asleep, but they’d lit a fire and left some cut up fruit for Peter and Yondu on a couple of plates on the log Chidii had been sitting on earlier. Peter noticed that the red shoes were gone, and wondered if Chidii had put them away or if some animal had taken them, too. 

After they’d eaten Yondu took off his coat and folded it into a rough pillow, setting it down away from the others and settling into the grass to sleep. Peter rustled around in his pack, frowning. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed like some of his things were missing. Hadn’t he packed that black t-shirt? The one with a half moon on the chest? He was sure he’d packed more rations than he had left, too. 

He shook his head and pulled out his blanket, setting the thoughts aside for later. He was too tired for it now. 

When it came time to settle, Peter didn’t know where to go. He glanced over at Yondu, who had one arm resting behind his head, eyes open and staring up at the stars that should be familiar to him but weren’t. Peter wanted nothing more than to settle over there, to push up against his captain and relish in their closeness, but Yondu must have sensed his thoughts because when they locked eyes he gave a curt shake of his head before closing his eyes and turning away. 

Frowning, Peter sat down  instead between Troy and Kraglin, an equal amount of space between all of them. He’d been lying there for what felt like hours, exhausted but unable to sleep, before he finally gave into his curiosity. 

He closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could on that vibrant rope connecting him to Yondu and, with more effort than he thought he’d need, sent out a single thought: 

_ Why?  _

Yondu audibly gasped in surprise, and Peter let out a quiet chuckle, sitting up on his elbow to glance over at the captain, who was propped up on both of his own elbows and staring shrewdly at Peter. 

_ You know why, Pete,  _ he sent through the bond, and Peter was surprised when there was no agonizing pain, but just a small twinge of headache behind his eyes. 

_ Tell me anyway _ , Peter thought, still gazing into Yondu’s eyes across the fire. The weird mood of the night had affected his own mood, had left him feeling confused, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to let this bond get the better of him but he also knew that something had changed between them by the waterfall, that something was changing between them every second they left the bond open like this. He still couldn’t bring himself to want it to be shut off again - the thought in fact made him physically ill and that should have scared him, and he was pretty sure it was going to when the sun rose and the spell of the night was broken, but for now he felt nothing but acceptance. 

_ This ain’t you, and it ain’t me. You know it. I know it. It’s not  _ **_real_ ** _ , Pete, and it ain’t never gonna be,  _ Yondu thought, and Peter, despite himself, felt his heart ache. Yondu must have felt it, too, because he thought,  _ Pete, you don’t want me and I don’t want you. It’s nothin’ but a trick. You’ll thank me when s’all over. _

Peter broke their gaze and settled back on the ground with a sigh. 

_ But I  _ **_do_ ** _ want you _ , he thought and he wasn’t sure whether he had sent it through the bond or not but it didn’t matter because Yondu was silent. 


	12. Little Talks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little short, but I thought it should stand alone. I'm making up pretty much everything, and I'm gonna delve a lot into a completely fabricated history, an explanation for why Yondu's so, you know, Yondu-ish. I hope you guys like the direction I take it in!

_ “Peter! Sweetheart, where are you?”  _

_ Peter opened his eyes and sat up straight in the same motion, hair sticking up in every direction from his impromptu nap, orange headphones that were still slightly too big falling down around his skinny neck. He looked wildly around for the source of the voice, and his chest filled with warmth at the sight of his mother walking towards him through the tall wild wheat he’d been resting in. She was wearing one of his favorite dresses - the blue one with little fluffy white clouds and buttons all the way down. It reminded him of summer, and she looked like a real angel in the soft billowy fabric. _

_ “There you are!” she laughed, and Peter didn’t know why but that beautiful tinkling sound made his heart ache. She saw his frown as she approached and dropped down to a crouch next to him, her dress puffing out around her legs as she fell. “What’s wrong baby?”  _

_ “I dunno,” he said, leaning into her touch as she ran her fingers through his curly sweat-damp hair. “Nothing I guess. Just tired.” He looked at her with wide, sleepy eyes, took in the way the light haloed her dirty blond hair like a shimmering halo and suddenly he missed her even though she was right there with him. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep mommy.”  _

_ Meredith chuckled and planted a kiss on his forehead. “That’s okay, my little Star Lord, I guess a guy deserves a cat nap on his birthday, huh? Lunch is ready though. Grandpa’s waiting for us at the table.”  _

_ If anything could make a growing boy forget his sudden sadness it was the promise of food, and Peter’s lips stretched out in a grin, displaying the hole where he was missing his first baby tooth. It’d just popped out that morning, and his momma had been so proud you would’ve thought he’d done something spectacular like ridden down the street without his training wheels for the first time.  _

_ He stood with his mom, dropping the wheat stem he’d fallen asleep with in his mouth and reaching up with both hands until she scooped him up and lifted him onto her shoulders with that same laugh that made him feel warm and sad all at once. She carried him like that all the way back to where his grandpa and grandma were sitting around the picnic table, freshly grilled burgers and hot-dogs piled high around the cake his grandma had made that morning, complete with a big blue number six in his favorite cream cheese frosting sitting right there on top. She’d told him when he asked that it was a carrot cake, but he knew she had to be fibbing because his favorite was her famous vanilla almond cake filled with her homemade chocolate icing. He hated carrot cake. Cake shouldn't ever have vegetables in it - that was - that was just unnatural. _

_ “You wanna dog or a burger, Pete?” his grandpa asked, ruffling Peter’s hair as his mom set him down at the table.  _

_ “Both!” Peter exclaimed, dropping his little fists onto the table and grinning.  _

_ Everyone laughed, and even though they knew he wouldn’t eat it all they put a plate down in front of him with a hamburger (two slices of cheese, mayo, and nothing else thank you) and a ketchup smothered hotdog. Peter wasted no time taking a massive bite of his burger, and as he glanced around at his little family he couldn’t help but feel at peace. He smiled around his too-big mouthful of food, and his mamma laughed and his grandma told him he was going to choke if he wasn't careful and his grandpa told her to leave him be and everything was perfect. _

_ After lunch everyone was too full for cake, so his mom told him to go off and play while they cleaned up and when he came back they’d have dessert. Before he left she wrestled him into a hug and wiped the ketchup off of his cheeks with her hand, kissing each clean side in turn as she did so. “Don’t go fallin’ asleep again, okay sweetheart?”  _

_ “Okay mom!” he agreed, wiggling out of her arms and dashing off. He stopped after a moment, looked back to see her watching, and dashed back to give her cheek a big sloppy wet kiss before running away again to the sound of that beautiful laughter.  _

_ Peter ran until he found what he was looking for, though he hadn’t known he’d been searching till he found it. He didn’t remember the river being in this field before, but he’d known it would be there, all deep blue churning waters with those strange red lightning fish. He didn’t stop when he reached it, but rather turned in the direction it was flowing and dashed off along its bank, toes skidding in the loose silt, laughing as the red fish leapt up around him, in front of him, like they were urging him on until suddenly the river seemed to stop and he was -  _

_ Yondu dug his toes into the mossy ground and wiggled them around, tiny and blue. He closed his eyes and S _ aw _ , Saw the moss growing, the trees leaning with the cool breeze, the bugs rustling around him in the moss and grass, searching, searching until he found what he was looking for. There. Under that bush to his right, the one with the bright purple berries.  _

_ He opened his eyes and trained them on that bush, smiling as he moved onto his hands and knobbly knees so he could crawl in that direction. There was a pulse of fear from under the bush as he approached and he stopped cautiously, dropping down onto his belly without ceremony, his bare unmarred chest nestling into the moss.  _

_ “It’s okay,” he soothed, tiny three-winters-old voice barely a whisper but he knew that the creature could hear him. “I won’t hurt you.”  _

_ When nothing happened he dug his fingers into the ground and concentrated as hard as he could, little blue tongue poking out between his lips, sending out soothing, gentle thoughts. He sent out thoughts of soft fur, warm milk, a snuffling nose; all things he knew this creature would associate with comfort until, at long last, he saw a bright pink nose poke out from under the bushes. Yondu grinned, gently reaching out his hand but remembering that he needed to be patient. His patience, as always, paid off, and before long there was a long purple snout to go along with the pink nose, and then a set of wide black eyes, short pointy ears, and, finally, a whole fuzzy little body including the long fluffy purple and white tail.  _

_ “It’s okay,” Yondu whispered, focusing all of his attention, all of his senses on the creature, urging it closer. “Good boy.”  _

_ At long, long last the creature reached him and before he knew it there was a happily squeaking mass of fur in his arms, nuzzling his cheeks, licking him frantically, and he laughed as he continued to send the little guy soothing thoughts of a mother beast.  _

_ “Good boy,” he said. “I’m sorry my daddy did that to your mommy. I know you’re scared, but he didn’t feel you. I did, and I’ll protect you. I promise.” He nuzzled his nose into the creature’s neck and sighed, letting its fur brush across his sensitive crest, soothing him.  _

_ \------ _

_ A whole lunar cycle later and Finu had grown to three times the size he was when Yondu found him. He now reached Yondu’s chest when standing on all fours (and Yondu was _  tall _for his age, at least a head taller than the others in his village even though his crest was still shorter)_ , _ but he was also able to hunt on his own which was good because Yondu may have been good with his arrow but there was only so much hunting he could do before the other villagers started to notice.  _

_ Yondu laughed as his friend tackled him to the ground and a flurry of fur and sloppy wet kisses. He scratched behind one big triangle ear, just where he knew he liked it, delighting in the waves of contentment he could feel pouring off of the creature. “Good boy! I got you a treat.”  _

_ “Yondu!”  _

_ Finu jumped at the sound of that harsh, barking voice, and Yondu’s heart seized. He’d been concentrating so hard on Finu that he hadn’t felt his father’s approach.  _ Stupid, stupid, stupid,  _ he thought, closing his eyes briefly before pushing Finu off and stepping protectively in front of him. It was worse than he thought, because it wasn’t just his father standing there but his father’s entire hunting party. They were all watching him with expressions ranging from disgust to disapproval, but that was nothing compared to the unadulterated  _ fury  _ he could see in his father’s face, could feel pouring into the ground at his feet like something toxic.  _

_ “Papa, I - “ _

_ “This is where you’ve been running off to?” his father hissed, taking a step forward, and despite Yondu’s fear he did not give in his stance. He should have, in retrospect, because at his lack of action his father’s eyes narrowed to slits and he knew, with a flash of near premonition, that whatever was about to happen was going to hurt. His father wanted Yondu to be strong, but not in the face of his elders. Deference and fear, that was what he wanted from his son when they were speaking. He'd always become angry when Yondu refused to cower under his intimidating gaze. _

_ Yondu opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get a word out there was a  _ crack!  _ in the air and his head was whipping to the side. Finu was snarling behind him and his ears were ringing, but it didn’t matter because he could feel what Finu wanted to do in the moment and he had to stop it.  _

_ “Finu! No!’ he all but screeched, throwing a hand out to stop his friend but it was too late because Finu had launched himself clean over Yondu’s head and was flying through the air, powerful muscles bunching. It was no use. His father, the village’s chief hunter, snatched Finu out of the air by his neck and the ache Yondu felt at his friend’s pained yowling would remain with him for years.  _

_ Throwing decorum to the wind he rushed to his father and dropped to his knees, clasping his hands together, hot stinging tears springing to his eyes (something else, different, wrong, Centaurians could not cry and he had to keep them in because he knew how his father felt about his oddities but, oh, Finu was so scared and hurt he just couldn’t help it). “Please, papa, please don’t. I’ll send him away, I promise, just please don’t kill him.”  _

_ His father glanced down at him and, not for the first time, Yondu felt the disgust seeping off of him in waves. Finu was struggling in his father’s firm grasp, thrashing around, gasping for breath, screaming, and even though he wasn’t touching the same ground that Yondu was Yondu could feel his pain, his wild fear. Now Yondu was sobbing, big fat tears rolling hotly down his face, his breaths coming in gasping hiccups.  _

_ “You are weak,” his father snarled, shaking Finu who wailed at the action. “How  _ dare  _ you shame me like this? It is time for you to grow up, Yondu.”  _

_ Before Yondu could utter a word his father whistled, and that sound reverberated through Yondu’s horrified mind so loudly he thought his ears might bleed. He watched, aghast, as his father’s arrow pierced through Finu’s chest, as the blood blossomed in his fur, as his father dropped the still alive but absolutely dying creature right at Yondu’s knees.  _

_ “Do not do this again,” his father said, and then he and the rest of the hunters were disappearing into the darkness of the jungle.  _

Peter jolted awake with a gasp, chest heaving, drenched in sweat. He barely had enough time to scramble to his feet and out of the clearing before the contents of his stomach came raging out through his mouth, his body shaking with the force of his retching. He dropped to his knees when everything was gone, still dry heaving, the sound of Finu’s pained wailing reverberating through his skull so loudly it felt like he was back there. 

He jolted when he felt a hand connect with his naked back, but calmed almost instantly as a familiar push of soothing washed over him and Troy dropped down into a crouch. A quick glance at the campsite assured him that no one else was awake, and in a moment of supreme weakness he let out one gasping sob and let Troy draw him into a hug. 

“Shh, it’s okay sweetheart,” Troy soothed, stroking his hair and pushing that cool calm feeling through him until he really felt it. 

“I’m okay. I’m sorry.” Peter pushed Troy gently away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still shaking with a fear he knew wasn’t his own. He glanced once more towards camp and saw through the watery rising sun that Yondu’s chest was heaving, and he knew that he’d somehow been in Yondu’s dreams. 

“What happened?” Troy asked, but Peter just shook his head and scurried over to the captain, intent on stopping that terrible nightmare. 

“Yondu,” Peter whispered, shaking Yondu’s shoulder. Yondu was drenched in sweat too, his shirt soaked all the way through. “Hey, wake up.” 

There was no fanfare as Yondu awoke; only the snapping open of his eyelids and one panicked look around before he shoved Peter roughly to the side and sat up. “The fuck do you want, Pete?” 

“I - “ Peter stopped himself, thinking quickly, knowing inherently that Yondu would be absolutely livid if he knew Peter had been traipsing around in his mind. “The sun’s rising. I thought we could get going soon, that you might wanna fill your canteen before we go.” 

Yondu was clearly distracted, his eyes wild and glossy, still near-panting with remembered panic, but Peter pretended not to notice. Yondu wiped at the sweat on his brow with a slightly trembling hand and stood up, shaking out his jacket and dragging it over his shoulders. “Yeah, alright. Wake the others. I’ll be back soon.” 

“Peter, what happened?” Troy asked again, sidling up next to him as they watched Yondu walk off into the jungle. When Peter didn’t answer he rested one firm hand on his shoulder. “You know you can tell me anything. I’ve been all around that messed up little mind of yours - no secrets, right?” 

“I think I was in Yondu’s dreams,” he said at length, taking comfort in the familiar feeling of Troy’s hand on him. “It was - “ He puffed out a breath and shook his head. “I think he was remembering, you know, before he was sold off by his parents.” 

Troy hummed thoughtfully, thumb stroking Peter’s shoulder. “I won’t ask what the dream was about - from the look of you two it had to have been pretty bad - but I wouldn’t be surprised if being back here for the first time is dredging up repressed memories.” He let his hand slide off of Peter’s shoulder and handed him a canteen of water, which Peter gulped down gratefully, washing the acrid taste of bile out of his mouth. “Chidii said that Yondu should have some kind of spiritual connection with this land, and I’m sure sleeping on the ground that’s connected to every living thing isn’t helping that. I’m sure it’s a lot to take in all at once, especially if he’s been avoiding his abilities as adamantly as I suspect he has been.” 

“Yeah,” Peter sighed, unable to tear his mind away from a barely-three-year-old Yondu, who was so sweet, so connected to the world around him, so  _ different _ , alien even on his own planet and amongst his own people. 


End file.
